Paint Pellets and Pistols
by theamityartist
Summary: Beatrice Prior has successfully obtained a new life as Tris, but in this new way of living she sees that not everything seems to be right... Piled high with volleyball practices, work, and trying to have a social life, she finds it hard to do what she believes is brave and at the same time selfless. Will she find a way to resolve everything and still come out alive and on top? AU
1. Chapter 1

***A very small part of this was taken directly from the book, just because I thought it was appropriate- those couple lines belong to Veronica Roth, not me.**

* * *

I fiddle with the blonde colored hair tie around my wrist, wringing it around and around while I think about my new life. My sophomore year at the public high school has been over for approximately three months now and, with the close of the summer nearing, my brother Caleb and I had to choose which boarding school we are to go to. So, about three weeks ago we enrolled to our own, separate schools for the classes of our choice. Naturally, we did it over the internet, so it took overall less than twenty minutes, but even since then I have been wondering whether my choice was the correct one.

As the golden elastic runs around my wrist with the aid of my pointer finger, I smirk a little. Of course my father _had_ encouraged us to apply to different schools, what with his high dislike of the ones we picked on our own. But I think it will be worth it. Besides, my new life looks enticing, exciting, _alive_.

"Beatrice, please get your bags, we need to pack them in the trunk," my mother softly commands me. I nod and stand up from my seat at the dining room table, pushing the chair back in after me. Hurriedly running up the stairs of my home and into my room, I grab my over sized black duffel bag and suitcase that I've stuffed to the brims with clothing and other necessities and quickly throw on my backpack. I scan my now seemingly empty room for any last belongings that I'll miss when I'm gone. From downstairs I hear Caleb call for me, with the same easy and effortless patience in his voice that I have heard from him for the whole of my life and I shout an all-but-patient "I'm coming" back. Before I swipe my CD player and my mp3 player off of my desk, devoid of any objects besides a stray pencil and a forgotten hair pin, I shut the door quietly behind me with a small _click_.

Awkwardly hauling the luggage down the stairs, the wheel of my suitcase falls on my foot and I grunt and hop the rest of the way to the door. My mother, hearing me, takes my duffel bag from me to free my hand.

"Thanks, mom," I mumble as I drag my stuff out the door and down the sidewalk to our car, already loaded with the blue of Caleb's own bags.

"Speak up, Beatrice," she advises, shutting the house door behind her. It makes a muffled _whumph_ of a sound.

I scratch my neck as I stare at the stuff in our trunk, looking away for just a second and sighing. Across the cracked, old street from us I see that our neighbors, Susan and Robert, are loading their truck up too. Susan waves to me and I give her a nod of acknowledgement the way my father would approve of, and add on a little grin even though I know that my family doesn't believe in public displays of emotion- it draws unnecessary attention to yourself. Sometimes I try to sneak around my father's rules, though, especially in times like this when it is really hard not to let a smile slip at my childhood friends. I hope they'll both be happy.

With my attention back, I play a little game of Tetris with the luggage before I can actually fit all five of our bags into the back of the car, and I close the hatch. Once I'm settled in and buckled, my dad drives off and as we pull out of the driveway I take one last look at my conformed gray house. Although it is identical to all the others in my neighborhood, I somehow managed to tell it from the others all these years and I wiggle my fingers at it as a kind of pathetic goodbye. Once we're out on the Interstate my mind wanders away from me and back to my soon-to-be home, with me drowning my thoughts in Indie Rock. All the drama that has been stirring up our moderately sized town- and most likely all of the surrounding towns, as well- is due to our messed up school system, really. In this particular county the education only goes up until the tenth grade and so all the sixteen year old students are forced to attend a new school their junior year. And on top of that cause for alarm, there are only a handful of choices. Five, to be exact.

The first is Abnegation Academy, the school whose motto is something along the lines of "put others before yourself," or maybe "treat others the way you'd like to be treated." It's a really conservative school, and that's where my parents met each other- Susan and Robert's parents, too. (It explains a lot, actually- for example, why my father finds it so irritating when I speak out of turn or wear anything with a neckline below my collarbone.) The second is Evletcliff School for the Erudite- or for short, just "Erudite"- which is pretty much the high school equivalent of an Ivy-league college, and also where Caleb has chosen to go. He's quite the nerd. Unfortunately, Abnegation and Erudite have this ongoing rivalry, so my father is not very proud of Caleb's choice, to say the least.

Next is Peasetree Amity High School, where Robert has chosen to spend the coming two years. That's a school for hippies who like to play guitar and sing and do drugs. It's all about keeping the peace, being Switzerland, always seeing the positive sides of things. Then the second to last choice us juniors have is the Candham-Orwood Boarding School, also know as Candor. This one's based off of maintaining an honest personality and staying truthful, even if it hurts to voice. Candham-Orwood students are very quick to say what's on their mind, and enjoy making people listen to their opinions. They "see life as black and white" so guess what their school colors are?

Finally, last but not least is the Dauntspointe-Evanless Preparatory School, which everybody just calls "Dauntless Prep." That's where I'm going and, in the words of my father, it's a "bootcamp for gangsters and brutes who just want to show off their muscles." Personally, I think it's more than that; The school believes in bravery and overcoming your fears; Courage; Honor. It's school symbol is a flame, too, so who _wouldn't_ want to go there?

We drop Caleb off first. I notice that everyone is wearing the same, stark blue uniform: khaki pants for boys and a pleated skirt for girls, a white shirt, a blue tie, and a blue sweater vest. I eye the sweater vests with an expression that could only be disbelief. I remember last week when our mother brought Caleb out to buy the three sets of his own uniform. To anyone else Caleb would have seem calm and collected- attractive, even- but I knew from the shine in his eyes that he was excited; that he was human. I suppose all the schools have dress codes, though I don't think they are all like this, turning everyone into a clone of one another. I read in the brochure for Dauntspointe-Evanless a couple days ago that it doesn't matter what we wear as long as it's black, and thank goodness too, because I sure as hell do not intend on donning a set of crisp skirts and cutesy stockings.

Once everyone is done bidding farewell- My parents don't believe in hugs, kisses, or any other form of public displays of affection, remember?- the remaining three of us watch as my older-by-only-a-few-months brother walks away to his dorm, pulling along his possessions. When we take off again, I internally groan. Dauntspoint-Evanless is twice the distance as it is to Evletcliff so I prepare myself for another torturously long trip and sink down into my seat in the back, propping my knees up on the passenger seat in front of me where my mother sits.

The highway is a blur of the gray and green and brown of the nature surrounding the all-too-unnatural lanes, and a crystal clear image of the red and orange and black of the vehicles whizzing down it at top speeds. As soon as we are just ten miles away from my stop, though, I become alert and gaze interestedly out the window. Like all the other schools, mine is nested in a tangle of tall buildings- we are, after all, in the city. We weave through skyscraper after skyscraper, train station after train station as we draw closer to the campus, where I notice that there are more and more people who brazenly wear black, with tattoos showing and piercings shining in the sun. Sneaking a glimpse at my father, I see he has a grimace on his face, but I find the people fascinating. A few of them look at our car now and then, but mostly we are only ignored, brushed off as just another newbie getting dropped off for their orientation.

When my father manages to find a parking spot and maneuver into it, I get out and unload my bags, huffing when I pull out the suitcase. I don't remember putting any bricks in there, but you never know. Anything's possible.

I get everything into one large heap of old, black, lumpy fabric on the sidewalk and look up through the driver's window, brushing my hands off on my shirt. My mother smiles but my father's face is hard as he gives me a series of short, to-the-point, commands that goes something like, "No alcohol, no drugs, no boys."

I press my lips into a line and give them the same type of nod I gave to Susan and Robert earlier that morning, and wave as I watch them drive off with not even another glance towards me. Through the tinted glass I see my mother put a hand on his arm and say something. I can't tell what, but I could guess; Over the past weeks or so, my father has been... _upset_ that neither of his children chose to attend Abnegation, in which he has so much pride. I sigh and realize that I've been standing still, not doing anything in the parking lot for longer than a normal person should. With my mother and father long gone, I wander back to what seems like much too much clothing and toiletries and CD's, now that I have to lug it all over campus.

I pull out the folded-up envelope from the back pocket of my jeans that has the paper in it telling me where I'm supposed to go now. I look at it:

_Building D, Dorm B, Room 42._

I fold the sheet back up and repeat the address over and over in my head to commit it to memory, as I slip on my backpack, throw my humongous duffel onto my shoulder, and take the handle of the suitcase in my hand. I go to take a step down the walkway when I stop. The Dauntspointe-Evanless campus is freaking huge and I don't even remember where the main building is- how am I supposed to find my dorm, let alone my own room? As I turn around, about to go up to the closest building to see if it was labeled, and in that case _what_ it's labeled, I bump into someone with an _"oof,"_ stumbling back. Before I even look up to see whom I might have annoyed, my mouth opens to apologize- old habits setting in.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," we say at the same time as I look up. It's a girl; She has dark skin and is, well... kind of stunning. I see that she, too, has her arms full with black baggage. The girl smiles and juggles a zip-up tote to her other hand so she can brush a hair out of her face that had fallen there. Once she's done that, she thrusts that hand out towards me and declares confidently:

"I'm Christina."

I let go of my valise to shake her hand, taking my headphones off (that are still playing music) and letting them fall around my neck.

"Bea-" I stop myself mid-name, debating. Am I the same person that I was with my parents?

No; 'Beatrice' just doesn't sound right anymore. A new place, a new name.

I take a deep breath.

"Tris. I'm Tris."

"Hi." Christina shoots me another dazzlingly confident grin and envy courses through my veins. "So, Tris. You're new here, too, I assume?"

"Yep."

"Cool, where are you headed?"

Thankful I went over the room number in my head just moments ago, I recite the place to her. Her face glows.

"No way, that's where I'm going, too!" She laughs. "So I guess we're roomies now, huh?"

I puff some air out of my nose and hope she takes that as a snort or a laugh or something positive like that. We meander down a ways, until I realize that we should probably find out where we're supposed to be.

"Hey!" I flag a guy who is walking briskly past us down. "Excuse me, but do you know where Building D is?" I grab a handful of his shirt and only then does he stop, looking down at it. After a moment I let go and he looks me in the eye.

Just as this happens, I suck in my breath.

My eyes widen a little bit.

And I'm sure I look like an idiot, but... this man has the most beautiful blue eyes that I have ever seen in my life. I could fall into them like-

"What's your name?" He interrupts my thought process and my eyes refocus. Surprisingly, the guy's voice is friendly and polite, like he's on some kind of welcoming committee. If you judged him just by his face, you'd think he's some heartless monster or something, because he looks tough as nails_._

"Uh..." I pause. I don't know why I hesitate. 'Tris' is still unfamiliar to me. He interrupts before I could introduce myself, though.

"Think about it," he says, a faint smile curling his lips. "You don't get to pick again."

I stare at the man.

"Tris," I say firmly.

"Well, Tris-" he stares into my eyes for a second too long, "-that's your dorm building." He points out the building to me. It's very tall for rooming, I notice that, and looks almost disproportionate with it's thick black walls. I read online that all the dorms have three levels- an underground one, and then two above that- that make up Dorms A, B, and C. There is a commons room in each housing building, and the floors aren't hard at all to memorize but as I glanced at the map shown on the website I quickly caught on to the fact that the different hallways of each dorm wind about each other and join in different places. _That_ could get very confusing. So, I know generally the layout of the school, I suppose, but I never thought the buildings would be quite as large as this. The young, handsome man's hand moves to point out something else then. "And that's Building A." I follow the line his arm makes and my eyes fall on another black edifice. "The main building." This one is shorter than the other one, but makes up for it in width, and the fact that there is a _freaking glass dome_ for a ceiling. This is by far the largest building on campus.

Briefly, I wonder why it needs to be so excessive and stifle a _'whoa.'_

"Thank you," I mumble at him instead and lift my hand in farewell to the man, beginning to walk back to my stuff and the waiting Christina. I show my new companion where we're to go and we head out, on our way towards our new home, and am quite amused by the fact that she's deemed it appropriate to pack three whole bags along with her own backpack and a normal, everyday tote. I offer to carry one of them for her but she declines with a chuckle, saying with a pun, "How dauntless would I be then?"

About halfway to our housing, a voice calls out to me:

"Hey, Tris!"

I turn around to see the boy with the flecked navy eyes, and stare at him.

"I'm Four."

I feel my features soften as I give Four the smallest of nods. Like I did with my parents, I watch him as he fades away.

Then in a good mood, I schlepp the whole of my bags down to the compelling black dorm, listening to the satisfying crunch of newly fallen leaves beneath my boots. I stare out at the campus. Building A is the last building on the campus and also the biggest, behind which lies the football field and the track. It kind of closes off the area.

A small, private street runs up to the main building and ends in a cul-de-sac with a patch of grass and a tree in the middle of it. At the end of the narrow street is a large parking lot with a criss-cross of white lines for spaces and a spattering of different styles of cars. Then, at the very edge of the campus, are two black, rectangular stone pillars that border the street with a design of flames creeping up the sides of them. On either side of the driveway are three smaller buildings, six total: four for housing and two for academics.

Buildings B through E are dorms for the freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, in that order. Building F is the English Literature, World Language, and History department while Building G is the Mathematics and Science department. Each building has its own lawn and bench by the sidewalk.

I turn back around as I reach the door to my dorm building- before Christina does, even with my observing- and when I throw it aside quickly so that I keep a hold of my belongings, she and I are met by darkness and an overpoweringly loud ruckus. Out of habit, I pause my CD that's spinning in the player.

At first I think the power went out, but then I notice small torch-like lamps on the side of the walls that set off a thin, kind of bluish light. It takes a minute or two for our eyes to adjust and when they do, instead of seeing blobs and silhouettes we see people; We see that we have stepped into some sort of common room. There are armchairs facing each other here and there, and on the far side of the room there are various game tables, like pool and Foosball. There is loud music pumping from an amp somewhere, but I can't seem to locate it and eventually give up on trying to find the source of the pounding bass. Other students who have already made themselves at home are socializing with one another and having fun.

The noise carries, even with the straining stereos.

Wondering what the cause of the echo might be, I look up and see that the ceiling of the building is actually much higher up than I originally expected, even with the previous observation of it being tall. There are at least two more stories, with a staircase that hugs the wall, missing its railing. My first thought is that that could pose quite a threat to safety, but my second thought is that it'll be _thrilling_.

I peel my eyes away from it and get back to hunting down our dorm. I glance around for signs of some sort, but can't find any. Biting my lip when I see a boy stand up from his seat on the ground, I nudge my new acquaintance. Upon the boy's noticing us, where he had been losing an arm-wrestling match against another larger boy, he walks our way and motions for his friend to join him. The other one then scrambles up off the ground and lumbers along behind him.

"Hello!" The first yells over the cacophony. "What are you guys looking for? Maybe I can help." He shrugs, with a sweet smile on his face. "I've been here for a little bit, I know my way around."

"Okay!" Christina shouts back. "Dorm B- do you know where it is?"

"What?" He leans in closer to the two of us, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Dorm B!" I repeat louder. His confusion is replaced by a look of recognition.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. It's right up there. The second floor!" He points up the stairs.

Well. Now I know what's going to be waking me up in the morning.

"I'm Christina, by the way! My friend here is Tris." She holds her hand out for him to shake and I smirk with the half side of my face, a lopsided, crooked grin.

"I'm Will." He waves at us and reaches behind him, grabbing the elbow of the bigger boy and tugging him forward to join our social circle. "Al, this is Christina and Tris. Christina and Tris, this is Al."

Christina half-gasps.

"Al!" She attacks him in a weird kind of bear hug and claps him on the back a couple of times.

"Er... do you guys know each other?" Will asks.

"Yeah, we grew up in the same neighborhood and, _wow_, I never thought you'd pick Dauntless!" In the middle of her sentence she changes from speaking to Will and moves her attention on to Al. He blushes a little bit and switches his weight from one foot to the other.

I think he has a kind face.

I give the boy a little wave.

"You guys think you can find your room number by yourself?" Will jokes.

"Ooh, I don't know... I'm really bad at counting. It's kind of this ongoing problem I have." I poke fun back at him.

Christina laughs and fires up a conversation with Will now, who nods at whatever it is Christina's going off about and puts in his thoughts about the subject here and there. When it comes to Al and me, though, the conversation kind of just dies. Every once in a while, I notice his eyes sliding back from Christina to me, though, and I would quirk the corners of my lips up.

Christina giggles at something Will said to her as I adjust the strap of my duffel on my shoulder and I think Will gets the hint that we should go ditch our stuff in our room. He walks back to his friend, who waves as I ascend the treacherous stairs. At the top there is a platform, where there is a hole in the wall that from farther away looks completely unintentional, like it was an architectural mistake that no one bothered to fix, but from a couple feet away is obviously a doorway. The break in the staircase is followed by more steps lining the wall, going up another flight. Above the camouflaged doorway a plaque has been mounted that reads 'B.'

"This is it." Christina leads the way into the new, also poorly lit hallway, and we pass by other doorways (these ones actually have doors in them) that lead to the separate rooms. The music is slightly quieter here, muffled by the walls of the complex. Now I understand why they are so thick.

We pass room 26 and keep walking.

There's a silence between us, but it's not so bad. Christina comments on the darkness, "It makes it so much more _exciting."_ She continues to try and make small talk with me, which I'm not very good at at all, but mostly about how she thinks it would be "way cooler if we called orientation _'initiation.'" _

_28_.

Further down the hall there are more students, just leaving their room, laughing about something.

_30_.

It's a group of boys. I was about to be polite and smile at them or _something_, but then I catch a glimpse of Christina's face, and it's anything but polite. I immediately understand that they know each other, and _dear lord,_ that they despise each other.

_32_.

Her grimace grows when the boy at the front of the group sees her. We both stop.

"Making new friends, I see," the boy sneers at her.

"Making new losers, I see," Christina shoots back.

"Or maybe I should say _friend_." The singular noun doesn't pass over anyone's head. His posse snickers. "What? You can't make more than one?"

Christina opens her mouth to retort, but-

"Hey, shut up!"

"Tris." She hisses underneath her breath, a warning. I glance from her to the boy and purse my lips.

"Whatever," I mumble and continue on to our room.

_34_.

I shove past the boys, willingly receiving their glares.

_36_.

_38_.

I'm almost at out door when the boy whose name I don't know but already hate turns around and decides to talk to me.

"Hey, _Stiff!"_

_40_.

"That's disgusting, at least take me out to dinner first." I declare, and then quieter but loudly enough for them to hear, I mockingly huff, "Some people!"

And I'm at our door, taking out the envelope from my pocket again to get out my key. Once I do, I jiggle the silver thing in the hole and twist it, unlocking the door. The whole time, the boy is expressing his irritation in phrases like "no, that's not what I meant," and various types of exasperated grunts. Then I shove my way into the room, squeezing all my crap through the slightly too small door frame and dump it all on the ground.

I poke my head out in the hall where the boy is fuming and calling names.

I smirk, "Come on, Christina."

* * *

Without anyone actually suggesting it, Christina, Will, Al and I find ourselves outside in the bright light of the afternoon, all groaning when we are bombarded by the sunlight. We shield our eyes, walking out to the big football field and track behind the main building, and climb up the metal risers that ring in that way that only high school risers seem to when we step on them.

Unlike others I've seen before, there's no railing at the very top of them in an attempt to keep people from falling off the back. I guess this school really goes hardcore with trusting you to keep yourself intact. I settle myself in on the floor, crossing my legs, and Al and Will both put their feet up on the lower riser. Christina lays down on her back in between them, resting her feet on Al's lap and her head on Will's. I put my arms up on the lower riser and rest my head against them, watching different groups of kids playing different sports out on the field: soccer, football. A handful of girls are practicing hand-offs as they race around the track, and other, older-looking students- probably seniors- are practicing some hand-to-hand combat.

That piques my interest.

As I watch the punches being thrown and blocked I mumble somewhat unintelligibly due to my jaw not being able to move from its place on my hands, "Do you think you guys are going to try out for anything? Any sports?"

"Naw, Will's going to be in the chess club," Christina giggles, commenting on Will's expressed love for books, thus making him a nerd in her eyes. He throws her hair that's not pinned underneath her head over her face and she laughs and brushes it out of her mouth as she says more solemnly, "I might do softball or lacrosse. I was on both back at my old school, but I'm not sure what I want to do here. This school seems so much more committed to everything already and we haven't even done anything yet. I mean, really, though. Look at those guys over there." She points at a cluster of shirtless, tattooed boys sitting on each others feet to aide them in their sit-ups. "How 'bout you?" Christina looks up at Will.

"I don't know. I get your point about Dauntless being different- there are no kids wearing glasses just to look more intelligent, or backs being broken from the weight of all the extra materials they carry around but don't really need." He laughs. "I'm estimating that eighty-five percent of that student body has transferred to Erudite, and I don't know if it'll be any easier or harder on them but I'm definitely not expecting any free passes here," He chuckles again.

I mumble, "Oh. My community was nothing like yours... everyone was too shy to introduce themselves or to raise their hands in class. No one was comfortable with being looked at for very long." I roll my neck and continue, "Everybody wore boring colors just so people wouldn't notice them. Sometimes I wonder if that really is selflessness at all, or something else entirely." I shrug. "I couldn't be like them."

Will nods and continues with what he was saying before.

"But I might join a team, yeah. Maybe swimming or soccer or something. Football... I don't know. Probably not football."

"I could see that, though." I say. "Soccer, I mean. What about you, Al?"

"Yeah, are you going to do anything?" Christina asks, poking him with her toes. He wrinkles his forehead and looks down.

"Um. I'm not really good at anything... especially if it's competitive, so probably not." He plays with the heel of Christina's pant leg.

"Oh, stop it! You'd be great at football, no one would even _try_ to mess with you!" Christina encourages. I nod my head in agreement, and so does Will. After a moment of the three of us looking expectantly at the boy, Will turns to me. "Are you going to try out for anything, Tris?" He sounds kind of skeptical, maybe worrisome, but I can't tell. Al looks up.

"Uh, well-"

_"Uriah, give it back! You idiot, that's mine!"_

_"No!_ Not anymore. Finders keeper, losers weepers!"

"You're going to be the only one weeping when I'm done with you! _Give it!"_

The bickering gets louder and we all look at a boy running away from a girl- at least I think it's a girl. The person's body and voice are feminine but the hair is all shaved off: masculine. The boy, protecting something in his hands, circles around the turf and then hides under the risers, zig-zagging around a few times, and hurdles the metal benches up to us. Christina gets off of the boys and leans slightly away from the oncoming stranger, who is currently shoving the contents of his hands into his mouth.

"Uriah!" The girl shrieks and leaps from bleacher to bleacher, yet again making that metallic clanging noise. The boy, Uriah, tries not to smile, probably in an attempt to keep whatever is in his mouth in his mouth and we make eye contact. Right then, his foot gets caught on one of the steps and he goes down.

Right on top of me.

Will and Al rush to help, and as Uriah is being lifted off of me- What, did he suddenly lose the ability to move, himself? I bristle.

"Ow, what the-" I yell at the same time Al and Will ask, "Tris, are you okay? Did you break her?"

"Oh my god." There's a chorus of concerned and angered voices around me, but all I want right now is to get the dang kid off of me when I hear the girl shout, "You shitface, that was my cake!"

We all stare at her.

Christina blinks slowly.

That was about... _cake?_


	2. Chapter 2

***Two lines are directly from Divergent. Again, the quote belongs to Veronica Roth.**

* * *

"Listen up, I'm only going to say this once!"

I rub my eyes. All the transfer students have been called for an assembly in the gymnasium, over the intercom.

Normally, that would be okay, nothing weird about it.

But it's four in the morning. What kind of school am I in?

There are three people before us; two men and one woman, though they all seem about the same age as us. Which also makes me a little bit wary of this school. The man barking at us currently is very tall, with long greasy black dreadlocks, and piercings that mangle his face. His eyes are hard and cold and his mouth seems to always be in a scowl.

The other man has his back turned away from us, talking to the woman, but he is tall with dark hair cut so short, in such a way that it reminds me of my father and how he always had his hair. Other than that, I can't tell much about the second man. Then, the woman. She has long, straight blonde hair with piercings all down her ear, from top to bottom, along with one on her lip and through her eyebrow. She is a curvaceous girl, and I find myself instantly envious of her body alone; she seems like the type of girl to whom guys would flock. But me?

I don't have anything desirable.

I cross my arms over my chest and scan the crowd of incoming juniors. It's taking a long time to get everyone here, and based off of the man's glowering looks, he is not enjoying that one bit. Upon hearing the announcement Christina and I, sharing a room, quickly threw on some clothes that at least looked somewhat presentable, but it seems like some other people weren't as lucky- or as smart. There are a few of those kids who are just in their boxers or their pajamas. To their credit, though, they're all pretty confident about it and aren't incredibly self-conscious like I would be.

The both of us are at the front of the growing group of students, and when Christina spots Al walking in with his sweats still on, she excitedly waves him over. Unfortunately, that caught Dreadlocks's eye, who lumbers down to her. Christina, with her back still being turned to the man, doesn't notice anything changed and continues to try to get Al's attention, stage-whispering to him. Slowly, the people around us hush and look on to the scene interestedly. The man towers over the two of us and huskily says, loud enough for everyone in a five yard ratio of us to hear, _"What. Did. I. Just. Say?" _

She freezes and turns around cautiously. Dreadlocks stares her down, but Christina sets her jaw and stands up straighter; It's how she's programmed to respond to a challenge.

"I don't know. I wasn't listening," she mouths off. My jaw falls open an inch. A vein in the man's forehead pops, obviously because of the short temper he seems to have, and he slowly swivels around to look at his two other colleagues. Then he grabs her elbow and drags her slightly away from the rest of the assembly, which is by now dead silent, and angrily addresses everyone, "You will soon realize that here, it is in your best interest to do as we say. Lip will not be tolerated in any circumstance. If you do choose to have such nerve, be prepared to face the consequences of your actions!" And then he tows Christina up to the other two people and throws her at the man, who has since been watching the exchange with hard eyes.

Hard _blue_ eyes.

Four scowls at Dreadlocks and whispers something to him in response to whatever he spits at him. Dreadlocks's back becomes rigid and he snarls something back at Four, who seems to then back down, but very reluctantly. He pulls Christina out a side door of the gym, passing by me closely enough to feel a breeze. Once they are gone Dreadlocks announces, "You chose us. Now we have to choose you."

Being conveniently at the edge of the pack, I wander towards the door, where I lean against the wall in an attempt to hear whether or not they are leaving, escaping down the hallway to go somewhere else. I hear Four's voice first, or what I think is Four's voice. It really sounds nothing like the way he was speaking to me yesterday, but now I know that his voice can match his face.

"No one here cares about your opinion- especially Eric," he hisses. "So don't bother voicing it. This is Dauntless; if you wanted people to worry about what's on your mind, you should have gone to Candor."

I hear Christina huff, followed by a handful of moments that are so silent that I almost think that they have left.

"Drop the attitude," he advises icily. "You'll find it will get you into more trouble than you can handle here at Dauntless."

Then there is that loud rattling that school doors tend to make just before they open and tips me off of the potentiality of their catching me eaves dropping in on their hushed conversation. I jump aside just before Four walks in ahead of my friend and eyes me suspiciously but goes on to trod up to the front of the room again. Christina joins me. I pretend to pay attention to the man whose name I now suspect is Eric, but in truth study Four, calculating how much of what he said is the truth and how much of what he said is designed specifically to scare loud-mouthed girls away from doing stupid things. The deadlock-bearing man paces around in front of us. "I am the principal of this school. My name is Eric; As you may now, we don't like formalities here. This is Lauren-" he gestures to the curvy, pierced girl, "-she is a teacher here and will be training you over the upcoming weeks with the help of another member of our staff, Four."

Upon the mention of 'training,' Christina and I share a look.

"You will be divided into two separate groups for the initial training- one group will be taught by Four, and one by Lauren. You are required to attend four to five separate physical education classes a day depending on your schedules, two of which will always be with your assigned instructor; the extras you will spend with myself or the other instructor- it will switch off from day to day. We all expect you to get along with one another here. Loyalty and pride in your school is expected. You are to come to all your classes prepared."

He looks to Lauren and she steps up. Her turn to speak, I guess.

"There are nine periods in a school day, all one hour long. That does not include your lunch. As Eric has told you, four to five of these periods will be devoted to your physical well-being, your strength, and your endurance. There are five minutes in between each period to get from class to class. The school day starts at seven sharp, and you will be marked late if you are not in your seat by the time the bell rings."

My recently-scolded friend leans in to me and, disobeying what she'd just been told about respect, whispers in my ear, "Guess I have to set my alarm for earlier, just in case, huh?"

I humor her with a hushed laugh but in truth don't fully hear her, with my attention still on the blonde woman.

"During your two hour lunch break, you can leave campus, you can go zip lining, you can do whatever as long as you are back at school, _seated_ in your class by the time the next period starts. The school day ends at 6:35. At that point, you are welcome to join the rest of us in the dining hall for dinner. You can also swing by there before first period to grab a muffin or a bagel and some coffee."

There are some quiet, knowing chuckles when she speaks of the caffeine boost.

"After 6:35, you are all free to do anything you want. There is no curfew or 'lights out,' but if you choose to stay up all night partying, it should not affect your school work or any other students around you. There will be consequences if we find that it does. Understand?"

We all nod and Four puts a hand on Lauren's arm and she hands off the spotlight to him. Will and Al have sidled up next to us by now, as well, taking sidelong glanced at Christina and most likely wondering what Four said to her.

"Good," Four calls out in an authoritative voice, again much unlike the one I'd heard yesterday when he was showing me around, but much like the voice he just used to scold my roommate. I can see that he is respected, and I remember the way he was walking around campus. "I trust you will all add your own cardio exercise to your daily routine, since it is not typically included in your training. We do have our own fitness center, and you are all welcome to use it as long as you take care of the machines; Last year a boy got his finger cut off in one of the weights, resulting in his family having to pay extensively for the repairs of both our property and the child's body. We don't want that happening again, do we?"

Silence. The instructor licks his lips and continues.

"There is a fine line between bravery and idiocy. Don't wake up one day and find yourself on the other side of it." If someone dropped a pin somewhere in this room, I would literally be able to hear it- that's how quiet all the students are. Then he smiles. Kind of. If it were a little bit warmer, then it could be classified as a smile. Right now it's just a... tight-lipped line. "On another note, tryouts for sports teams will take place next week. There is a list posted on the bulletin board inside The Pit as to which sports we encourage here at Dauntless Prep."

Lauren runs up next to Four, grinning, and shouts, "See you suckers at the track-and-field trials next Monday!"

A few people laugh flatly and others snort. A couple nod, as if they weren't paying attention but are trying to pretend like they are. For the majority of Four and Lauren's 'welcome' speeches, Eric had been picking at his nails, but now he looks up. Apparently, after one too many blank stares from the juniors, he barks, "Do you pansycakes know where The Pit is?"

More blank faces, and some mumbling.

"Building A! This building, where the cafeteria is!" He yells at us. "Where the main office is located, if you're too dumb to have already figured that out."

Numerous glares and sassy, pointed looks are directed at our principal as the students turn to leave, though Eric does not let on to noticing them. People begin to filter out of the air-conditioned hole and I assume that the meeting is over. When I glance back up to the front of the room, where the instructors are, I make eye contact with Four and quickly look away. As Al checks his watch, I frown and pull his arm over to me, twisting his wrist so that the numbers are facing the right way.

"We're going to pick up our schedules, haven't got 'em yet," Will mutters, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes still. "Care to join us, Tris? Christina?" Indifferent, I shrug and walk along with Al behind the other two. I already got mine. Our shoes slap against the uncommon floors tiled with perfect slabs of stone, all four sets of them, and mingle with the sound of our breathing. Other than that, though, we all remain quiet on our way to the Pit. Christina reaches the front desk before everyone else and looks at the tattooed, multicolor-haired woman. The young woman behind the desk, not much older than us, sighs like she just read our minds and immediately knows what we are standing in front of her for, and begins twisting her eyebrow piercing between her fingers. "What's your name, girl?"

Christina states it and the lady dips down behind the desk and goes through a drawer full of files, fingering them to find the right one. She pulls out a manila folder and hands it to Christina, looking at me.

"Oh, I already have mine," I dismiss her impatient glance and look to the boys, moving out of the way to lean against the wall. I furrow my eyebrows and go over my classes in my head. When I had first received it, I had been baffled and a little pissed off that they didn't let me take Psychology or at least Government; Sadly, Dauntless doesn't offer those classes, but who knows why? Admittedly, I punched the wall when I found this out- which I immediately regretted. I cupped my wounded knuckles in my hand for a moment and grumbled to myself about the callousness the school appeared to enjoy exuding. And, I had to wonder, what happened to the courses if they were listed online when I enrolled but not actually offered? _Maybe the website just hasn't been updated,_ I remember telling myself. I snort and deciding not to wait for the others, I walk away to change into more presentable clothing and find my first class.

After stepping out into the chilled early-morning air that is much unlike our recent weather, I get inside of the commons of Building D and hopping up the stairs to my room, I strip my bed down only to remake it. I go through my morning routine and after fifteen minutes or so, I no longer look dead with blue circles beneath my eyes or have mussed up, wrinkled clothes on. So, with my small black canvas backpack on and my files in hand, I head out five minutes before the beginning of the first period. I'm not one hundred percent sure as to where I'm supposed to go right now, though. Eric assigned all the students who have never been here before to train with Four, and all the others to Lauren- meaning kids like Uriah or Lynn, the girl with the shaved head, who have attended this school since their freshman year. I recall that P.E. is my first period class so I take a leap of educated guessing and head back to Building A, towards the gym I previously left. On the way I run into another girl, accidentally bumping into her.

"Oh, I'm sorr-"

"Move it, Stiff!" She shoves me and stomps away. Sighing, I push the door open to the gymnasium- which continues to be just as dark as any other building of this school- where I find Christina, Al, Will, Peter, and various other new kids sitting on the indoor bleachers against the walls. As I approach them, I notice there is a significant amount of space in between all the different groups of friends. Once I take a seat, I listen to Christina rambling off about how badly her schedule blows.

"They're making me take Advanced Spanish."

"I could help you with that, I took it last year," Will suggests, and when we all give him blank expressions, he explains nonchalantly, "My parents wanted me to be Erudite."

I run my fingers through my hair. "My parents wanted me to be Abnegation."

"That explains a lot," Christina chortles, watching as Four walks in with a giant stack of black fabric.

He drops them in a pile on the waxed floor of the gym.

"Okay, amateurs! Come up here and grab your clothes, we'll be starting in five minutes," He yells. At first no one does anything but stare at the clothing. "Go!"

Everyone scrambles up from the benches at the same time to get their set and go out to the also light-deprived locker room. There I find that the clothes Four has given us are a pair of small black athletic shorts and a skintight black tank top, with a high neckline- well, at least it's high for some girls I've seen around the school grounds so far. For me, the neck is more on the revealing side after living like a nun for the first sixteen years of my life. A hot blush creeps up my neck and onto my cheeks when I look at myself in the mirrored walls of the room. I fidget and follow Christina back out to the cold gym. The boys seem to be dressed similarly, just with longer, baggier shorts that fall to their knees. I catch one of them eyeing the girl who pushed me, her chest nearly falling out of the shirt, though they quickly glance away when Four clears his throat. I catch the girl smirk as our teacher begins speaking.

"For those of you who have neglected to put on proper footwear this morning, feel free to go barefoot." I sense some passive aggressiveness there, and see a few girls toe off their shoes. I glance down at my neon orange running shoes, mildly surprised that they fit the dress code. "Great." Four says. "We'll start off with suicides: first to the white line, then to the yellow, then to the black, and back the same way. Once you have gone all the way to the other side and back, that counts as one lap. Overall you'll do one hundred. When I blow my whistle you are to start. If you happen to get to the line after you hear the whistle, you come off to the side and do fifty push ups. When the rest of the class is done, you'll start over on the suicides by yourself."

We line up against the wall, and we hear the whistle. Us juniors race to the white line and pause in a runner's crouch with our hand touching the floor, until we hear it again and return to the wall.

There's the whistle again and we go to the yellow, further off on the court.

_The whistle._

Back.

_The whistle._

To the black line.

_The whistle._

Back.

And that equals set number one. We continue doing this over and over even past the brief moment in the excercise where our muscles have fully warmed up and are at the point of perfect exertion, and to the less-rejoicing part where our muscles ache and a few people are lagging behind. On the next blow of the whistle we race off and Al, alongside a girl whose name I don't know, fails to make it to the line before Four goes off again. They both remove themselves from the group, hunching over, and proceed to get down into a plank position. From where I am, running to and fro and crouching down and standing up on the waxed gym floor in constant repeat, I can hear the two of them counting with each other. We have only done twenty-two out of the hundred suicides we are supposed to do, but already two people have fallen behind and walked themselves to the sidelines.

"Pick up the pace!"

_The whistle._

Forty nine and another boy is gone, joining Al and the girl in push ups.

That's about one-third of us; this is a surprisingly small class for how many juniors there are at this school.

_The whistle._

"Come on, people!"

_The whistle._

Sweat drips down from my forehead and I can feel it on my neck and chest.

Four has been speeding up the time in between each rep and now I barely make it.

_The whistle._

I push myself harder.

My thighs hurt.

My heart is pounding.

_The whistle._

A piece of my hair falls into my face and sticks to my cheek.

I try to blow it away.

_The whistle._

I push myself out of the crouch and drag the hair away.

I pull my long blonde hair out of its ponytail holder and run my fingers through it quickly, trying to smooth it out.

I get to the line without my hands.

_The whistle._

I gather it all and pull it back up, haphazardly wrapping the elastic around my hair.

There's the line.

My arms are working.

I pump my legs faster.

_The whistle._

And I'm not there.

I collapse with my hands on my knees and try to get my breathing back to normal on the sixtieth lap. Then, pulling down the nearly-butt-revealing shorts that have begun to ride up, I move out of the way for the oncoming rush of black and get down onto the floor next to Al and the others. The girl who pushed me joins me a lap later. As I get ready for the consequential push ups I look up at the remaining four people: Christina, Will, Peter, and some other boy. I go down and push myself back up.

"Hey Al?"

_Down_.

"Yeah?"

_Up_.

"Who's that guy?"

Al looks around us and then follows my gaze out to the court.

"The one with the dark hair?" He asks for confirmation.

_Down_.

"Yeah."

_Up_.

"Um..." He thinks. "I don't know."

_Down._

_Up._

_Down._

"That's Edward. We're dating," A girl with mousy brown hair and big lips breaks into our conversation."I'm Myra."

_Up._

_Down_.

"Tris."

"I'm Al."

Christina comes to join us on the seventy-second lap, breathing heavily.

"How many have you done, Tris?" She means the push ups.

"Dunno, I'm not counting," I huff as my biceps strain.

Christina and Al exchange a glance as I continue my reps.

"About thirty," he estimates.

"Oh." With that, she joins me. I finish my fifty- or at least I guess I do- before Christina does and oddly enough, my abs hurt more than my arms do. I lay down sprawled out, letting the cool of the ground seep up into my skin and make up for the heat of all the blood rushing through my veins just beneath it. I listen to my breathing as the area around my face and chest becomes sticky with steam and condensation, and I lift myself up a ways off the floor to rearrange myself to a cooler, drier area. My lower back gets chills and I know that my tank top has crept up, like the shorts seem to enjoy doing. I shift them both down uncomfortably, blushing while hoping no one has seen my body or my motion, and close my eyes. Too lazy to look myself, I say again, "Hey, Al?"

"Yeah?" He repeats from our earlier talk.

"Who's left with Four out there?"

There's a pause.

"Peter and Edward. They're on their eighty-third lap right now. Will just got out."

I count the remaining laps based off of the squeaking of the boys' sneakers and the sound of our instructor's whistle.

"Why does this have to be so tiring?" Christina moans in between push ups just as I note that Peter and Edward are getting close to their hundred now, and Will has just begun his own push ups next to Christina.

Ninety seven.

_The whistle._

Ninety eight.

_The whistle._

Ninety nine.

_The whistle._

One hundred.

_The whistle._

And both boys make it back to the wall. For the rest of the hour-long period, Four makes us repeat this process, only with double the amount of push ups if we fall out, and each time we are able to stay out there longer and longer. By the last set of suicides, I was able to keep going for ninety-one laps. Christina, Will, Peter and Edward all made it the whole way, and Al, Myra, and the other boy whose name is Drew- I only know that because of our teacher's repetitive bashing on him about his pace- all dropped out at sixty-four or sixty-five. The last girl- the one who enjoys taunting people- fell out a lap or two after me again. Four drills us on these push ups, holding us down as far as we can go until we either break down or put pressure back against him. He walks around, weaving in between us. He scolds us, saying things like "Myra, straighten your back," or " Al, faster," and his favorite saying so far today, "No time for breaks, initiates!" Occasionally he corrects our hand placement or something like that, but usually he just tells us to get going. No wonder my dad called this a boot camp. The teacher wanders around through the lines of students that are down on the floor in front of him, and just as Four presses down against me the bell signifying the end of first period rings; I collapse against the sticky floor, covered in rosin to keep our feet from slipping out from under us when we do whatever it is our instructor's little heart desires. Four gets back up from the squat he was in to become level with me, and we all hustle to get back into the locker room and change into our everyday clothes. Once I, myself, am back in my full-length jeans that are not at all in any way about to expose places I would rather not be exposed (such as my ass, thighs, chest, and pretty much everything else that my gym outfit fails to cover), I barge out the door and hurry on to find my Pre-Calc class with only three minutes left of passing time. Working my butt off, I strain my eyes to try and evolve a higher sense of vision so that maybe by the time this day is over I can actually see in the dark- meaning, of course, getting to all my classes on time.

* * *

I arrive a minute late to math.

Apologizing vehemently as I come in, my teacher tuts and walks over to his desk where he marks something down in a wide green, gridded notebook: attendance. _Tardy_.

"Beatrice-"

"Tris." I correct again. "I go by Tris."

He scowls.

"Tris, you'll sit there-" he points to a seat in the back of the classroom, "-next to Uriah."

"Okay, thank you," I mumble as I rush over to my assigned desk. Sure enough, when I pile all of my books- the ones that we had to buy in advance- on my desk, I look over and there is that middle-eastern looking boy. The one who likes cake. He grins a goofy smile at me and I can't help but to grin back, straightening my materials out in front of me as the professor rants about what to expect in his class and the whole classic first-day-of-school shebang. All through the hour of converting basic equations that we all remember and had all learned from algebra and algebra II as review, Uriah kept sending me notes scribbled down on lined paper, ripped out from his notebook in the form of small paper airplanes. By the time the bell rings, I not only have failed to note the name of my teacher, but I have also collected so many origami planes that someone could accuse me of hoarding.

On our way to our next class we chat about pretty much anything we can think of.

"Mmm, I know." I sigh at one point in our conversation about never knowing what to do over the weekends. "And what do you think you're going to do during your break? I'll probably just explore the campus, I still don't know my way around completely..."

He laughs, telling me he doesn't know.

Uriah and I happen to have French together as well- we find this out when we literally walk into each other in the hallway, trying to enter the same classroom. So that's both of our higher placement courses, and they aren't so bad as I thought they would be. Actually, I find Uriah to be... kind of charming. Not to mention he's an incredible distraction from the _imparfait_ and the _passe_ _simple_ and the _conditionnel_ conjugations of stupid irregular verbs. Unfortunately, our language teacher isn't quite as oblivious as our math teacher, so we had to be a bit more subtle with our note passing. Uriah informs me- during the professor's droning speech about the importance of the location of personal pronouns, mind you- that "pansycake" is _his_ word.

"It died a long time ago," he whispers and shoots me a wink before saying. "But me being the nice guy I am, I brought it back."

* * *

"The instructions are simple: climb as high as you can as fast as you can. If you fall, you fall; there is nothing you can do about it. There is a net below you, so you don't need to worry about mortality, just focus on climbing."

"We don't even get a harness or something? No one's going to belay us?" Christina asks.

"No," he replies harshly. Four, for my second gym class of the day, is instructing all the transfers. We sit on a rough rope net made of stiff fibers that stick out at awkward angles and scratch my bare thighs, leaving red lines on my beige skin. I run a hand over the rising marks and stick it between the uncomfortable material and my legs in an attempt to remain unblemished.

"Remember that this is a competition. Everything is fair play." Someone cusses. He looks evenly at us and a few people, including myself, change their position so that they will have an easier time starting off. "Begin." And bodies spring up and off of the thickly wound twine and onto the stone wall as high as they can. The net jiggles and throws people off balance as different students of different weights jump off at different times and shove themselves at the edges and cliffs here and there to grab onto, leaving it all to inertia and momentum. My foot almost gets caught in the rope material but I grip a divot in the wall and drag myself up, straining my arms until my feet are high enough to find something. Christina with her long legs pushes herself farther and farther up, having an easier time than me at grabbing handholds and footholds. The cold rock against my skin scrapes my palms as I propel lightly from rock to rock, and I wish for gloves but am thankful that I at least have sturdy cross-trainers on. People cross paths, people cut each other off; People call out offensive names and comments and slurs; People pull out arms and legs, hands and feet out from under their peers; People slip, people grunt and moan and gasp and shriek; People complain, yell, go out of their way to sabotage each other; It's safe to say I silently avoid people.

Four is watching me.

I pull myself too close to the wall and a jagged rock scrapes my cheek. I wince. I feel a hot sticky substance run down to my neck and I know I am bleeding.

I keep moving.

Without looking around me I know that I am near one of the last students; my arms won't reach and my legs won't push me up. Often I am stuck in one spot for many precious seconds before I finally see another way, or I take the risk of falling twenty-plus feet and jump to another ledge. The growing darkness doesn't help one bit. As I inch higher and higher, the air seems to get thicker and heavier with my increasing lack of vision. I push harder off the jutting black projections and pull harder on the thin, sharp crevasses. My gym shirt bunches at my waist and my shorts crease at the joining of my legs and hips from my sudden, constant movement. The ledges shrunk an inch or so ten feet down and the fissures have since narrowed: I can no longer wedge my fist into the wall to use my knuckles for leverage. My foot launches me off of the small jutting shelf and my arm stretches, fingers ready to seize hold of the overhang, but the pads of my fingers barely graze the rock- I am holding onto nothing. No part of my body is touching the wall.

Panic shoots through me and the hands of gravity drag me down towards the floor of the gymnasium that has long been invisible to me, blacked out. My toes, still close to the wall, abrade the wall with the tough soles of my sneakers and I struggle to continue hugging the stones with my body and to not push myself away from the wall. I throw my palms against the wall, hoping they'll find something as I fall to save me. A strangled sound escapes my throat and my eyes grow. As I make my steep descent to the growing net, my limbs hit sill after sill but never manage to use it to stop. I can feel bruising. I squeeze my eyes shut. _Deep breath, Tris, deep breaths. _And with the next shelf of the stone wall, I throw my hands down. The idea is a good one but I forget to lock my elbows, which then spring back with the force of the impact and throw me off. I slip and fall off of the ledge I'd been trying to stop my fall with and my fingers fly to find another surface to hold onto. Rubbed raw, I force my hands to stick, screaming at the pain I feel in my wrists and the cramping I feel in the joints of my fingers. For the first few seconds I just hang there, praying to the god my father taught me to believe in as a child to please don't let me slip again. Then- with gravity growing on me, heavier with each moment that passes- I use the small amount of upper body strength that I have left to force myself back up against the imminent pull of physics, my feet searching for footholds. Sweat pools on my lower back and my chest heaves, my breathing is jagged.

I can feel eyes on me, I don't want eyes on me.

Four yells from below us that our time is up, the competition is over; we need to come down now. I can hear the bodies of the students around me dropping, some shrieking, some laughing, some silent. I hear their bodies hit the net. I hear their footsteps as they walk over, out of the way. I hear someone ask if I have a fear of heights. _Mumbling, mumbling below me._

"Tris," Four calls, but it doesn't sound harsh, it sounds like the voice he used when he first introduced himself- Four the friend, not Four the instructor. I press my cheek against the cold black stone, and can feel the heat radiate off of me. I let my breathing even. My friends call to me- I am the last one. And I take a deep breath and let my foot push me away from the wall I had wanted to stay so close to just a minute ago as my hair flies around me and whips my face.

I smile.


	3. Chapter 3

It's been five days since my arrival here at Dauntless Prep; In other words, today marks the close of w my first week of actual classes. I sit in the common room of our dorm building with Christina, Will, and Al, which we've dubbed the Mini-Pit due to its also-high ceiling and its matching circular staircase that is tight up against the wall. (Really, the only huge difference is that it doesn't have a skylight.) Along the walls there are little alcoves that Christina and I hadn't seen on the previous days, each with it's own stereo and collection of CDs. Every single one of them has it's own refined wooden door for just the purpose of keeping the outside noise out and the inside noise in. The darker hue of the wood, though it is obviously a completely different material from the black brick walls of the building, blend in in the dim light. The atmosphere seems to do that to a lot of things, to wash away the close details of everything. One of the small side rooms, three doors down from the main entrance of the building, I have found to be my favorite with various albums of my favorite artists and bands. So I have wound up there pretty much whenever I have any time to myself.

There are a couple of black beanbags next to the tall speaker system and one massive, fluffy comforter that is just kind of there, laying spread out on the ground in one big, beckoning mound. I've curled myself up in it, sitting cross-legged and leaning my head on Al's shoulder beside me. Christina and Will have both claimed the makeshift chairs and are laughing with each other about what hobby of theirs is the most embarrassing. I bob my head with the beat of the drums in the song as I scribble down my answers to the math homework for today, my eyes flitting from my calculator and to my ink-covered notebook, and back to the ginormous textbook we're supposed to carry around with us every day. After surviving five whole Pre-Clac classes I find that it actually isn't as hard as I expected it to be, and am only very rarely addressing my should-be-Erudite friend for help. I mean, finding the equality of B^2 isn't torture or anything. I half mumble, half sing along to the song that I insisted we listen to, tapping my pencil against my blanket-covered knee. Al looks down at me, cradling his styrofoam cup filled with steaming, black coffee.

"You know this song?"

"Yeah, I have the whole album. I brought it with me, actually, it's up in my room."

"Oh. Who's it by?"

Before I even look up from my work I can just feel the spark ignite in my eye; I love it when people ask me about my music. I explain to him the band, their name and the reason behind it, the names of the members, my favorite songs of theirs. Sometimes I find that I speak too much about things I am interested in, especially when the person who originally asked was only trying to be polite like Al is doing now, I assume. But, you know, I'm a selfish girl so I plow right on past their own opinions and ignore it. Really, it's their own fault for initiating my over-enthusiastic speeches. I invite Al to check out the rest of their CD, which is stashed up in Christina's and my dorm room. He shrugs slightly guardedly and as we both stand up, after disentangling myself with the airy mass of fabric I ocooned myself into, Christina and Will look up at us. I grab Al's hand and drag him out of the alcove, honestly slightly uncomfortable with even the small amount of physical contact, but I don't let go and tell myself that I'll have to peel off those metaphorical old Abnegation clothes eventually. I call back to the two of them, "We'll be right back." Taking the stairs two at a time, we get to number 42 in no time at all and I key open the door.

Immediately, I feel self-conscious at letting the other gender into my room; My parents would barely let me _associate _with the male gender, let alone letting them see where I get dressed, sleep, and _live_. It was against how they were brought up. It is against how _I_ was brought up. My chest tightens as I think of my mother and how I will not see her again for some time, how she always held herself so perfectly, how she had such a quiet beauty. Quickly, I clear my throat and shut the door.

"Okay." I walk over to the shelves that have been assembled over the head of my made-up bed, and are now used as a place to store my music library. I jump on top of my bed, the springs shrilly groaning, and hop from foot to foot as I finger through it. Finally I pull out a CD with a dark, grim, almost medieval-looking alley on the cover and a cluster of boys looking up at the cloud-covered gray sky. "Here." I toss it over at Al and he catches it in his drink-less hand, studying the calligraphic title in the top right corner. He looks up at me. "Oh. Um..." I amble over to my set of drawers, the bureau standing up against the far side of the room along with Christina's matching one- they were already in here when we arrived- and paw through my belongings until I find my Beloved Portable Music Machine. I jerk my head to the side and bump the drawer closed with my ass, walking back out to the hall. I leave the door open. "So," I say as I lean against the wall of the corridor of the dorm, sliding down it. When my butt hits the floor I smirk and pat the cold stone next to me. "This is it." Plugging the headphones into the CD player, I reach up for the album and open up the case, putting it in. I press play and hand it all over to Al as he slides down beside me. "Tell me if you like them."

After a moment of enduring the music he so obviously doesn't like, he glances at me and admits, "I feel bad. Don't you want to listen, too?" He tries to cover up his expression of distaste as he gives back the headphones, but I can see that he doesn't enjoy it; that's what a Candor upbringing does to a person, I suppose.

* * *

"Okay- no, no, no. Uriah, you don't know anything! Here's what you do," Lynn announces to us all, showing us the ropes of this new game she calls _Blammo_. "So everyone's given a gun and a box of paint pellets, and you've _got_ to carry them around with you wherever you go. Basically, you're assigned someone to stalk."

I make eye contact with Will. I don't think either of us think this will be fun, seeing as Lynn, Uriah, and Marlene all have handguns tucked into their belts or their back pockets. Honestly, I'm a bit freaked out.

"If you ever see this person without their gun, you shoot them- with a paintball, of course- and yell 'Blammo!' Then that person will be marked with that paint as 'Blammoed' so everyone will know that they're now out of the game. (Oh, when you're hit, you can't play anymore, I don't think I mentioned that.) And once you're Blammoed, you tell your stalker who _you_ were stalking and then that person will be their new assignment."

"What if you don't know how to use a gun?" Christina asks, her hands on her hips.

Lynn and Uriah share a glance.

"Are you serious?" Marlene looks baffled.

"Well... yeah," I declare.

After a moment, Lynn just kind of glares at us and replies with, "Figure it out." Christina looks offended. _"Anyways-," _she says pointedly, "-it's legal to shoot someone as long as their hand is not touching any part of the gun. You're only safe if it is _in your hand_- not slung over your back, or in your backpack, or in between your legs or something. It doesn't matter if it's just _around_ you." Lynn kicks a big cardboard box towards us across the turf of the football field, where we now all stand. "Take one." I go first, lifting up the flaps to see that is it a boxful of the same kind of guns that the three non-transfer students have: pistols. I take one and am immediately surprised by the weight of it, stepping back for the others.

"So... how long does this game usually last?" I question.

Uriah seems to find that hilarious.

"Anywhere from one day to one year, depending on the commitment of the players," he snickers.

My eyes widen. "But what about during school? We can't bring weapons into school."

"Sure you can," he shrugs. "Everyone does it. Marlene and I have since freshman year."

My eyes grow even more. "And they let you?"

Lynn walks up behind Uriah. "Calm down, Stiff. It's no big deal. Dauntless just trusts us a shit-ton."

"Mhmm," Marlene chimes in. "Eric pretty much told us that they all trust us not to be _stupid."_

"Yeah, so we're getting the whole junior class to join in!" Uriah grins. "We're going to get everyone's names together- granted it's going to take a while, but it'll be worth it- and then we'll all draw from a hat." He thinks about that. "Er... from... I don't know, from something _big."_

I blink. Well, then this will be very interesting. Right then Will, Christina, and Al all walk up behind me, armed with their own guns. I look down at mine, where my pointer finger is resting safely outside of the trigger guard. And I think, I plan to change that soon, as my feet roam off the bright green turf, kicking up little round, brown grains of plastic "dirt." All the way to the campus my legs increase their speed slowly but surely and in the Pit I see a tall, dark figure about to enter one of the corridors. _Four_. I hear my feet collide loudly with the chilled stone floor of the compound, trying to catch up with the man with flecked blue eyes. I run up behind his walking silhouette and my hand falls heavily onto his shoulder, getting his attention. My breathing is quiet, slightly uneven, as my feet stop abruptly and I wait to see his face. When I do, it is serene, composed, still, and my eyes fall down to his full lips and I feel a sudden magnetism towards them, like I've been caught in the sun's orbit.

"Four. Teach me how to shoot a gun."

His eyebrows shoot up at the same time as my eyes flick up to his face.

I see surprise, doubt, control; fascination.

I feel his hand take mine and I feel my chest swell.

* * *

"Hold it in your hand like this." His voice is coarse, standing behind me. I feel his chest lightly grazing against my back, feel his fingers curl around mine and around the gun. Four pushes the weapon back into the webbing of my thumb with the tips of his fingers, his thumb on one side of the grip and the others curled securely around the other side, just below the trigger guard. I match the positioning of my hand to match his, acutely aware of his hot breath on my neck just below my ear. "Grip the gun tightly but only with the middle and ring fingers, so tightly that your hand begins to shake." I feel him exert immediate, strong pressure; I do the same, forced to. "Then relax a bit to stop the shaking," he instructs. His lets up only a little bit, but enough. "Keep your trigger finger- that's this one-" he removes his index finger from the hold and rubs it along the length of mine before replacing it firmly, "-safely outside the trigger guard but ready to move into position."

Four finds my other hand with his free one. "Wrap this hand around the other side of the frame and align your two thumbs. This second hand steadies the gun. Make sure both thumbs clear the slide or hammer." I do as he says. "Good." And my young teacher removes his hands from mine, stepping away, scrutinizing me. My back is instantly colder. We are in another Dauntless training room that is so grim it might as well be underground. Four's jaw is set and there is a crease between his eyebrows: I am beginning to wonder if he always appears so bitter. He moves for the door and I follow him with my eyes as he exits the room.

I frown. Am I really that bad?

My arms drop to my sides, along with the weapon, as I listen to his retreating footsteps down the corridor and once they fade I listen to the silence, staring at the still-open door. After a few seconds I peel my eyes away from it and concentrate on the obviously homemade target in front of me.

Wood.

A sloppy paint job.

Red rings around white rings.

Dents, holes, and splinters.

I lift my gun again, determined. I stand with my feet shoulder-width apart, with my left about a step past my right, slightly leaning forward. I bend my knees and test my weight, making sure I'm firmly balanced. The elbow of my right arm is almost completely straight. Then as I am about to close my left eye and again take my aim, I realize that it may not be my dominant eye; then my aim would be off. I stick the gun in between my legs while I try to figure this out. Making an even triangle with my index fingers and thumbs, I stare at an object in the distance- the bull's-eye. Focusing on the object, and making sure that it is centered in the triangle, I close my right eye. The bull's-eye moves out of the triangle. I open my right eye. It moves back. I close my left eye. The bull's-eye stays inside the triangle. So my earlier instinct was correct: My right eye _is_ dominant.

I take the gun back up into my hands, resuming my position and my mindset. As I look through the little notches on the top of the metal thing- one at the front of the gun and one at the back- I make sure they are level with each other and evenly centered, keeping the front notch in focus and the back notch blurry. What I'm doing is two parts taking a wild guess on what the proper procedure to shoot a gun is and one part using my common sense. I align the front notch with the center of the bull's-eye. Not allowing my hands to move, I now focus on the target as I put my finger into the trigger guard. And I squeeze it. But no movie or book could have prepared me for the sheer noise of the fire, or the powerful jolt of it recoiling. I stumble back a few steps, blinking. I missed the mark; the bullet lodges itself into the fifth ring out, instead of the little circle inside the first.

That's when I hear his light breathing. I look over to see my blue eyed, dark haired, jaw-set teacher saunter into the room with a gun of his own in his hand. With neither of us saying anything, he walks up next to me and plants his feet apart in front of the second ancient target inside the training room. Swiftly, he lifts his arms and shoots.

Dead center.

He turns his steely irises on me.

"What did you notice?"

"You were confident."

He stares at me before turning back to the board.

"Watch again."

Four fires again. His bullet hits in almost the exact place as before, but he doesn't even glance towards it before he fixes on me.

"You breathed," I say. His eyebrows raise in... surprise? Applaud? I can't be sure. And then with one simple word, the man makes my heart race and my blood rush:

"Go," he says.

So I go. I take a breath, exhale half of the air inside my lungs, and then squeeze the trigger. I keep pulling it at a constant rate until the gun goes off, already forewarned that the shot will startle me. This time it gets closer to the middle, but only by a ring or so. Four advises me, "Aim for the bottom edge of the bull's-eye," and "Don't look at your target; Look at your front sight."

_Bottom edge, bottom edge; Front sight, front sight_.

I once again stare at the foremost notch of the gun, this time pointing it slightly below the center.

"Good," he says for the second time when I finally hit my objective, after firing several rounds. And though that is as much approval as I get from the muscular man, I find myself proud.

I find myself staring at his lips.

My fingers have loosened their grasp on the weapon and I need to remind myself that it is still loaded, that it is dangerous, that it could kill. My fingers curl tightly around the modernized pistol as I, still gazing at his full, beckoning lips, flash a quick smile to my instructor and blurt out a rushed "thank you." Then I turn on my heels, half-toss-half-lay the handgun on the surface of the table in the corner of the room by the door, and speed-walk away, leaving him scratching his head and confused, before I do something I would eternally regret.

Like violate my teacher's ever-frowning mouth with my tongue.


	4. Chapter 4

**Once you lovelies have read this chapter, review with who you want Tris to be with... ;]**

* * *

_"Blammo!"_

Uriah bursts through the door of the gym and proceeds to somersault into a crouch, holding out his pistol in two hands. The bang resonates throughout the high ceiling-ed room as Myra is caught off balance, a large pink splatter of paint dripping across her abdomen. The middle eastern-looking boy jumps to his feet and pumps his fist in the air.

"You just got _paint-balled!"_

All the other students in the room noticeably finger their own metal contraptions as the girl with the black hair curses Uriah and he saunters up to her.

"Okay, stalker, who are you following?" He asks, cupping his ear right by ear mouth. Scowling, Myra leans down and whispers the name of her-used-to-be victim. Uriah snickers. "Piece of Dauntless cake," he mutters and turns around to exit the gym just as soon as he had come. Pushing the heavy wooden door aside, he turns around and calls, "Oh and Four, Lauren wants to have a joint session sometime! Forgot to tell you, man..." Then he's gone.

Christina laughs into her knuckles as Myra grumbles and attempts to wipe the sticky pinkness off of her very-not-pink shirt.

Molly scoffs at her and says in a loud, aggravating manner, "Calm your tits, it's just a game." She walks away, back towards her corner of the training room with Peter. "What a pussy."

"Okay, okay," Four yells, snapping his fingers loudly. "Eyes away from the door, back to class!" He walks up to the girl who was just eliminated from the school-wide game and holds out his hand for the gun she no longer has a use of. As she grudgingly sets it in his palm, he shouts, "As I said before, those of you who are participating in Blammo still must do everything that the others are doing, no exceptions."

Al shoves Christina to get her to shut up.

"Go practice those kicks on the punching bags before I practice them on you!"

I smirk, but I know that we'll need that practice for later today when we execute those moves on each other during our hand-to-hand combat class with Eric.

* * *

I walk into the dining hall- somewhat stiffly, due to my fight with Myra earlier that day which I had, unfortunately, lost- and grab a tray, spooning mashed potatoes and gravy onto it, along with an array of green vegetables and spaghetti. Luckily, neither Myra or I are very good at this whole fighting thing, so both of us got away with minimal bruising; I can't tell whether Eric was happy or sad about that. (He was probably angry, if anything.) As I walk through the line of students waiting to receive their own helping of food, tall, tan guy walks up beside me with a matching tray.

"Hey, you're Tris, right?"

"Yeah," I say as I look him up and down. The lean man smiles.

"Thought so."

I furrow my eyebrows and grab a handful of napkins and a fork on my way to the nearest table that is seating Christina and Lynn. He follows me.

"Your Abnegation is showing," he explains, motioning to my baggy sweatshirt.

"Well, your Dauntless is showing." I point to his tattoos peeking out from his shirt.

"That's kind of the point," he says wryly, passing my table as I set my dinner down. Still standing, I watch him walk over to his friends- including Lauren- as he calls over his shoulder, "I'm Zeke!"

I sit down at the same time he does, noticing for the first time that also occupying his table is a laughing Four. I smile to myself and keep hold of my pistol as I twirl the pasta onto my fork, Marlene and Uriah joining us at our seats, bubbling about something.

Lynn scowls.

Christina eyes them like I am and looks over at me, raising an eyebrow as if to say, _Jealous? _I give her a shrug back. _Who knows?_

Will and Al join us now, Will hopping the bench of the long rectangular table on Christina's side, and Al throwing his long legs over mine, across from him.

"So," Will says. "Albert and I overheard some Candor talking about this party over at the beach during lunch today..."

The pre-junior Dauntless students at our table flick their eyes over at him as if they have a built-in radar for the word "party."

"So let's crash it," Lynn suggests calmly, as if that _wasn't_ where Will was going in his train of thought. She twirls her facial piercing between two fingers.

"I mean," Uriah shrugs, "If you guys aren't up for it, 'cause it's Monday and we have school tomorrow or some other stupid reason like that, we could-"

"Let's do it," I interrupt. Lynn grins.

"Oi, Shauna," the shaved-headed girl leans over the table, looking past us towards Zeke's group. An older blonde girl leans forward at her own table. "You up for some party crashing tonight?"

"Yeah, I am!" The blonde girl fist-bumps Zeke, who stands up and jogs to us, and starts chattering to Lauren next to her. Meanwhile, Zeke secures Uriah in a headlock and starts chanting some stuff about little brothers and family pride, giving him a noogie. Uriah shoves his older brother off of him, saying, "Cut it out, you asswad. Mom's gonna kill you if you get drunk again."

"What makes you think Mom's gonna find out, fucktrumpet?"

The two siblings then continue on to toss a colorful array of other swears back and forth before they laugh and playfully hit each others arms before sitting back down with their respective group of friends. I'm suddenly struck with an immense sense of homesickness, of longing to have that kind of banter with my own brother again. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath, thinking of my older sibling who betrayed our parents the same way I did. I wish I could tell him to not feel the guilt that I'm sure he does.

But then I remember that I'm Dauntless now, and Dauntless don't look back; I allow myself three seconds.

One. Caleb tests me on my vocabulary words for an English exam. "Beatrice, you'll ace this test with _me_ as your tutor." He winks. I reach over the pile of note cards and ruffle his dark hair, as he squints his green eyes at me.

Two. Caleb dries the dishes as I hand them off to him, newly washed clean of the food our mother prepared for Christmas supper. He nudges me with his shoulder. I smile and nudge him back.

Three. Caleb hits me over the head with his history textbook, laughing as he passes me on his way to his room. "Study up, little sis." I stretch over to catch him before he's gone and snap the elastic of the back of his sock against his ankle.

Beatrice.

Tris.

Tris.

_Tris._

_"Tris!"_

My eyes fly open to see six other pairs watching me.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," I mumble, blinking and looking away from the Dauntless eyes that are having Candor moments.

"We didn't ask that."

I stand up from the table with a tight chest and briskly walk to throw away my uneaten food and dump my dishes in the big plastic bins marked "dirty."

I take my time once I get there; I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of dish soap, cooling food, hot sweat, and overpowering perfume. I hear screaming and a gunfire, the word _Blammo_, and cussing; laughing, too. I look up, turning around to see, not my friends checking up on me, but Eric.

He watches me with his beady eyes and greasy hair and infected piercings and disturbing tattoos.

I suppress a shudder and return to my place at the wooden bench, food-less, where Al smiles at me.

Time passes quickly like it always seems to do here at the Dauntspointe-Evanless school and nothing notable happens between then and when Christina is trying to maul my face with her eyeliner: now.

"No, Christina, I don't want to-"

"Oh, come on, Tris, it'll be fun, can't you just-"

"Stop it, get that thing away from-"

"Hold still, it'll only take a-"

"But you already picked my wardrobe out, why can't I just go the way I-"

"Because it's a _party."_

"I don't see what's so important about this party that I need to wear makeup; Will a celebrity be there?"

"No, but hot guys probably will be and-"

"Stooooop, I told you to _stop!"_

"Tris, honestly it's not that bad!"

"You say that now, but wait until my eye is lolling out of its socket and blood is pouring down onto this carpet."

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic."

"These carpets look pretty dang expensive, are you sure you're stacked enough to replace them?"

"Jesus, I never thought-"

"Just feel the plushness between your toes! _Feel it!_ Do you know what that feeling is?"

"Tris, don't make me-"

"That's what it feels like to have your money flushed down the toilet!"

"Are you seriously going to-"

"Step away from the bowl, Christina, _step away from the bowl!"_

_"I'm not going to poke your damned eye out!"_

And she pins me to the bed.

A minute later and my blue eyes are lined with black, makeup caked on top of the fading cut I got from rock climbing during gym last week, and I am wearing something that would barely pass as a bathing suit if I were still living with my parents.

I sigh and glance at my roommate who has donned an even more skin-revealing outfit for herself.

"Christina, I'm not a slut," I say dryly, and for her benefit I add on, "and neither are you."

"You're only a slut if you wear this everyday," she states with a look on her face that clearly reads, "Are you even a girl, Tris?"

Of course, she doesn't voice this.

And luckily, I get to refuse the six inch heels she offers me, and exchange them with a pair of my own strappy sandals. Besides, who wears heels to the beach?

Before Christina drags me out of our shared room, I quickly brush my teeth and check myself in the mirror: Straightened blonde hair; Lined-and-shadowed blue eyes with black; Glossy lips; Desperately pushed-up nonexistent boobs; Loose, but low-cut black sequined shirt; Tight, short black skirt; Heavily bracelet-ed arms and anklet-ed legs; Earrings hanging from my earlobes. And dammit, Christina, how is this not a whore's outfit? I slip off half of the bracelets and wipe off the lip gloss with a square of toilet paper, tugging down the restricting skirt as much as I can with it still looking okay. I try to adjust the top so that it doesn't show as much chest, and when I'm convinced that's as good as it'll get, I reluctantly smile at my transformed self in the mirror and grab my gun as she grabs hers. I allow my fashionista to tow me along behind her.

"Good?" I ask.

"Good." She says.

We meet up with everyone at the edge of the campus at nine thirty, exactly. I'm a little shocked by how many people are coming along with us- I just assumed it would only be the ten or so who were initially invited- but, I suppose, news travels quickly and thoroughly throughout the Dauntless compound. Through the sea of limbs and scraps of black clothing, I spot Four at the head of the group, leaning against a tree. I watch him for a moment, with his eyes closed and his hands folded behind his head, until I see a clump of people approach him: Uriah, Lynn, Marlene, Zeke, Shauna, and Lauren. I grab Christina by the arm and pull her towards them.

"Wait, Tris!" She says, alarmed. "What about Will?"

"He'll find us," I assure her.

"And Al," she says rapidly.

"Mhmm," I allow, grinning knowingly, as we reach the mass of people we know.

"Woah! _Tris!"_ Uriah shouts, his exclamation shortly followed by heads turning my way. I hear a whistle and feel a heavy blush creep up to my cheeks; I hope it's too dark for them to see, but I highly doubt that.

"Hi," I say quietly and shove Christina in front of me, hoping they'll give her their attention instead of me.

But I highly doubt that will happen, either.

After a moment I look up from the lawn and sneak a glance at Four, who also seems to be blushing. Me being the selfish girl I am, my mind immediately assumes it's due to my physical state of near-nakedness, which, of course, only causes me to blush harder.

_Selfish, selfish girl, _I scold myself and return my gaze to the ground.

"So, Four-" I listen in to the voice I have identified as Shauna. "-what's the sitch?"

He simply says: "Train."

Train?

A girl whoops, probably Lauren or Lynn.

Then I see Four's black-clad feet walk away, off the campus, and into the street.

I look up and follow, along with the rest of our crew. Slowly, the other crashers catch on and fall in line behind us. (Metaphorically, though- we're really just a scary mass of Dauntless, not an orderly line. I don't think the Dauntless are even capable of that.) We all trek loudly through the streets of our city, until we're a couple hundred yards from the train station. By the time everybody catches up with us, though, the train has already started pulling away.

"Wait, weren't we supposed to get on that?" Christina questions in a rush.

I agree with her, but everyone just laughs and brushes her off.

"No," Zeke chuckles. "We're going to _jump."_

"Are you serious? Do you know how dangerous that is? We could-"

Four silences her with a look.

"Are you Dauntless or aren't you?"

And just then Four runs through the open field, up to the moving train and grabs a hold of a handle, swinging himself easily up into the train with the still-open doors.

Lauren follows and is followed by Zeke, Shauna, Uriah, Lynn, Marlene. Dauntless after Dauntless throw themselves into the thing, leaving the majority of new junior gaping after them as the train rushes and picks up speed.

_Are you Dauntless or aren't you? Are you Dauntless or aren't you?_ Four's words resonate in my head.

"Let's go!" I sprint until I'm running up beside the train, trying to catch up with one of the handles, transferring my handgun into the waist of my too-tight skirt. I try to reach out for one of them, but my arm is just that much too short and, as I see the actual station coming closer and closer and my time running out, I jump and my fingers find and hold onto the metal. The momentum of the train is greater than mine, though, and it pulls me off of the ground, and I strain to keep my feet pounding against the ground. I feel my toes scrape against the hard gravel by the tracks and wish I had thrown on my army boots instead of the flimsy sandals I wear now, and am aware of my skirt riding up and my shirt creeping down. I scream as the station draws near and a head pops out of the door, looking down at me.

"Give me your hand!" They yell over the wind and hold out theirs.

"I don't need your help! _Move!" _I shriek as I secure my grip on the handle, urging my feet to move faster, and forcefully fling myself into the moving metal contraption, landing hard on the person. "I told you to move," I mumble, breathing heavily, and get up off of the body.

Once I do, I realize that the would-have-been-help is Four. As he, too, gets up off of the floor of the train I see his facial expression and have the instinct to shy away.

"Do you understand how stupid that was?" His voice rumbles throughout the car angrily.

I put my hands on my hips and set my jaw.

"Am I Dauntless or aren't I, _Four?"_

"Being Dauntless doesn't prohibit you from accepting help, _Tris." _He spits my name out at me the same way I did his.

"I'm not saying I didn't need it, I'm saying I didn't _want_ it," I shout. I can hear the spark of rebellion in my own voice but for some reason I can't find it in me to back down to him.

"Fine," Four says quietly and sits down in the nearest seat. But just because he's quiet, it doesn't mean he's any less angry.

"Fine," I say just as quietly and just as hotly, taking the seat across from him where I take the pistol out from my waistband and check its magazine, making sure I have enough ammo just in case I see my assignment without his gun. Originally I was given Will to stalk, but I traded with Marlene for Molly; she's kind of a bitch, so I'd get more pleasure out of shooting her- even if it is with only paint- than I would Will.

Christina bursts in the car with a bloody knee. I look down at myself and see some ugly, rubbed-raw toes. Yup. Should have gone with the army boots.

"Tris, what the fu-" she sees Four. _"-dge_... was that? You could have, like, _died!"_

"Yes, she could have," Four mutters.

"Nobody asked your opinion," I grumble.

Christina glances at Four quickly, but just as quickly dismisses him, and drags me up from my seat.

"Come on, let's go find Will and Al," she says stubbornly. Before we leave the compartment, I throw a glare over my shoulder at Four, who receives it with and icy gaze back at me. I don't stick my tongue out at him like a child, but I immaturely want to. And neither do I give him the finger. I suspect the both of those would succeed in dropping my P.E. grades lower than would be preferred, what with pissing off the teacher and all. Christina pulls me through the different cars and every so often I wave to someone I know. It occurs to me now that Four was the first person to get on the train so to be by the same door I was at, at the same time, would mean that he was- most likely- following me. I bite my lip as I sit down in the crowded compartment, and stare at the patterns of the lights against the floor, flickering and dancing around the black bodies of the Dauntless. I notice that not one person in the few cars that Christina and I passed through contained a single person from another school- no white, no red, no yellow, no blue, and no grey. Just black. But nonetheless, there are two stops before Four re-enters and announces to the throng that we're getting off now.

Not being at another station or anything, I come to the conclusion that we will exit the vehicle the way we entered: jumping.

And I am right.

This time as dark clothing billows out from behind the backs of my peers, I watch and analyze their movements before I leap off of the slowing train, myself. My feet hit the ground hard and another piece of gravel finds its way between my shoe and the sole of my foot, but I ignore the pain and keep myself moving so that I don't get in the way of anyone else, or fall over. I jog to a stop next to Uriah, limping slightly, and lean down to pluck the pebble from my flesh.

"Is this a frequent thing you guys do?" I inquire, half to myself.

"Sort of. It gets better with more practice."

"I hope so," Christina mutters as she joins us, nursing her wounded knee. Behind her dark head of hair I catch Peter's eye and grimace at him. He smirks at me and mouths a word that I can't make out, but am sure it's not pleasant. I'm about to turn away when I see that further away, Molly and Drew are conferring about something. He points to her shoe, after which she crouches down; It's untied. Peter seems to notice my sudden interest in his friends and flashes me an obscene gesture with his hands before turning his back to me, but at the moment I couldn't care less.

Molly's right hand holds her gun.

With her left, she reaches down for her laces but, fumbling, can't manage to tie them.

She looks up and glances around before hastily setting her pistol down next to her foot, swiftly going to tie it back up.

I grin and raise my gun.

People around me notice and turn their heads, looking for my target.

I align my front sight with the bottom of the girl's hand, breathe in, and shoot. A bright spot of blue knocks her limb aside and she presses her other to the ground for balance, eyes flicking around for her assassin. She finds me, walking towards her confidently, and scowls.

_"Blammo,"_ I whisper.

"You've got some nerve, Stiff."

"It's just a game," Christina sneers behind me, using Molly's own words. The disqualified girl scrambles up off the ground, thoroughly ticked off.

"Sore loser, huh?" I ask. "What a pussy."

"At least I'm not a Stiff," she counters.

"Shouldn't you be busy whoring around?" Christina throws at her.

"Oh, like you-" Molly begins to say something back, but Four cuts her off, once again holding out his hand for her gun. I do a double take, surprised that he has appeared so suddenly again. She unwillingly picks it off the asphalt of the road and tosses it to him. "Whatever." She spins on her heel and stalks off.

I don't get the name of the person she was following, but I soon forget it as Four puts a hand on my arm and guides me back to the group, where they begin their small trek from here down to the beach where grains of sand filter through my toes and between my shoes and my bare feet with the first step I take, the smell of salt creeping up my nostrils.

Although the sun has set, the waterfront is bright with the light of the moon and all of the the little neon-colored LED's, strung up from poles here and there, woven through the volleyball net, and embedded in the dunes throughout the top of the shore. Stunning greens and pinks and blues scream for your attention and pop into your vision no matter where you're looking.

People scream and laugh, running around with red Solo cups in their hands, dark liquid splashing around onto the beach, clumping the sand where it falls. It is a sea of intoxicated students, a movie filmed in black and white. I see a girl being chased by a guy, giggling with reddened cheeks. He scoops her up in his arms and twirls her around in the air, her shriek blending in with the rest of the noise. The moment he sets her down on her feet, grinning, they proceed to throw their arms around each other and lock lips, stumbling around until her back hits an old splintering telephone pole; A group of maybe twenty Candor have thrown together a bonfire at the far end of the shore, the flames rising and leaping with the late summer breeze; In the center of the hubbub is a large net with a clump of people on each side, hitting the volleyball over from team to team, cheering and whooping when their opponents get out. A table with a couple kegs and an array of bottles and glass jugs, coolers and six packs is set up just to the right of the improvised court, a stack of plastic cups knocked over into the sand by the crowd of tipsy teenagers.

The other Dauntless catch up with us, standing on the edge of the beach, surveying the party from the sidelines, like an army of black.

A girl in a white bikini looks up from her spot on her towel, laid out in the sand as if she were hoping to get a tan from the illumination of the tiny fluorescent light bulbs. Her face is flushed and her eyes appear glossy as she stares at us and begins to titter to herself abstractedly.

Shauna and Zeke are the first ones to trespass on the other school.

They run onto the dunes, spraying sand behind them with each step they take, hollering.

Four is next. He walks calmly towards the keg.

After that, we all begin to join in, some rushing for the booze, others taking their time, and more approaching the Candor, challenging them to games of nukem, volleyball, football.

I look to my left only to see that Christina is no longer by my side but instead off with Will, practically inhaling the foam off of her overflowing drink.

A ways onto the sand there is a pile of shoes and phones, various belongings that people didn't have the patience to hold on to, or just wanted to get rid of. Jogging up to it, I peel off my flimsy sandals and knead the coast with my toes, pushing my hair away from my face.

I keep my handgun.

I stand there for a moment taking in the whole scene; this is the first party I have ever been to. For the first sixteen years of my life my parents have insisted that parties are selfish affairs that only serve to "corrupt the minds of our young." Some Dauntless have joined the bonfire and appear to have gotten a game of Truth or Dare going. My sight roams back to the volleyball net.

I run up to it, digging my heels into the submissive shore.

A tall boy with black hair notices me.

"Can I join?" I ask, slowing to a stop a yard away from where he is on the court.

"Uh.." he says and looks over to the other side of the net. "Hey, Michael! Bro! You got any room on your team?"

Some guy- Michael, apparently- with shocking blonde hair looks to the boy, who jerks his thumb at me. Michael switches his gaze and sweeps his eyes over me.

"Yeah, sure," the blonde boy calls back, still staring at my legs. I feel the urge to shudder, but I repress it. "I only have five, it'll be even now. You can be in the back line with me. Center."

I duck under the net and force a grin at the Candor boy named Michael, sidling up next to him.

"Can I keep this in my hand?" I ask, holding up the gun.

He stares at it blankly for a moment.

"You're Dauntless."

I smirk and twirl the gun around my pointer finger, through the trigger guard. His eyes glint.

"If you're up for the challenge and if you promise not to kill anyone. You know how to play nukem?" He asks, glancing at me.

I shake my head, but say, "Don't worry, it's only paint pellets. We've got a competition going on... I'd rather not put it down and lose."

He snorts.

"Okay, well it's pretty much the same as volleyball- you know volleyball, right?"

"Of course I do," I scoff at him. He puts his hands up in defense.

"Just wondering. Anyways, instead of just hitting the ball, you have to catch it and _then_ hit it. What you want to do is to get the ball to land in the sand on the other team's side." He leans closer to me, putting a hand on my lower back precariously close to my ass, and uses his other hand to point. "See, like right there would be a good spot to aim. Where people aren't protecting- a gap. If the other team doesn't catch the ball, then the closest person to where it hits the ground is out. And if someone touches the ball but doesn't _catch_ it- like fumbling- they're out, too." I squirm under his touch, uncomfortable. "Got it?"

"Yeah," I say, hoping he'll take his hand off of me now.

He doesn't.

"Good. Once you catch the ball you have three seconds to throw it back over the net. Oh, and when you have the ball in your hands, you're not allowed to move your feet or else you'll be disqualified. So, the game goes until all the players on one team is out, but you can get back in if someone on your team catches the ball with one hand. Don't throw the ball out of bounds, either, because then you'll be out. The boundaries are right there, by that wallet near Kevin-" a lanky boy on the other side waves to me, "-and that pair of shoes near us. And just a tip-" Michael leans in even closer to me and whispers huskily in my ear, "-don't throw the ball very high 'cause it'll give the other team more time to run under the ball and catch it." Finally he straightens up and jogs to his corner of the sandy court. "'K, Kyle, it's your team's serve!" He calls to the black haired boy who first spoke to me.

"Awesome!" Kyle takes the ball in one hand, throws it up, and spikes it over the net.

A girl in the front row with curly red hair grabs it and fiercely throws it back over.

Two boys on the other side collide with each other in an attempt to catch it, one hugging it to his chest. He stands up and hits it over, barely skimming the net.

One of the little colorful lights is knocked out of the netting and falls into the sand by the foot of another Candor as the ball flies towards Michael and me.

"I got it!" I yell at the same time he shouts, "It's mine, it's mine!" Jumping in front of him, I catch the oncoming ball with my left, gun-free hand, and cradle it to my chest like the other boy did to keep it from bouncing off and hitting the ground.

_"Damn,"_ someone says as I throw it up and smack it back with my flat palm.

I bend my knees, watching the white ball hop from person to person, and can see in my peripheral vision Michael alternating his gaze from the ball to me, me to the ball.

It flies back over to our team and the boy to my other side catches it softly with his fingertips and chucks it as hard as he can to Kyle's team, who dives for it but misses it by a simple inch. Landing with a muffled thump, the ball leaves a little dent in the sand, and a short, chubby girl with brown hair groans dramatically and huffs off to the sidelines to watch and wait for someone to get her back in. Kyle picks it up and throws it over for our serve.

The boy to my right catches it and glances at Michael, conversing with their eyes. After a second he nods and hits it as close as he can to the net so that the other players have to lunge to get a hold of it.

_Catch, throw, lunge._

_Catch, throw, dive._

_Catch, throw, lunge._

The process goes on and on, the ball successfully evading me for a series of minute until it is towards the gap between me and the girl in front of me. I catch it with both hands and toss it up in the air in front of me, not hitting it to the other team. Using my gun as a flat surface instead of my wrists, I clasp my hands together and bump it over the net, aiming for the very back. Hopefully, the other team will think that it will go out of bounds and will ignore it.

That's exactly what they do.

The lanky boy, Kevin, cusses and walks himself out of the court, making a line behind the brunette girl.

I laugh at them and pump my fist.

_"Suck it,"_ Michael yells.

Our team is jittery as the ball ricochets between the two teams. At one point, a boy on our side fumbles and the redhead dives for the ball tossing it back up in the air. Unfortunately, it didn't make it over the net so for a while the white synthetic leather thing bounces from teammate to teammate, uncoordinated. I think in that short moment all of our hearts stopped as we tried in panic to keep the ball from touching the sandy ground, until finally someone catches it and it sticks in their hands. I hear a couple people release their breath.

And the volleyball is back in play.

"Haley, get the ball!"

"I'm getting it, I'm-"

"No, no, no, no, no-"

"Lena, _what are you-"_

"Kevin, shut up!"

"Michael! _Mike, Mike, Mike!" _

The Candor students yell at each other as the game goes on. Two people are eliminated from my team and now we're even. The ball flies over the net and I catch it, hit it; Kyle catches it, hits it; The redhead catches it, hits it, but this time it fails to make it over.

"Shit!" She huffs and kicks sand up at the ball. Our team groans as she goes to line up behind the others. Now we only have three people on our team, including me, and we need to spread out a little more to accommodate the whole of our makeshift court. The game then speeds up and there is virtually no pause between the grasp of the ball and its continuation in the air, arcing over our heads. The other players cheer us on along with the crowd we've gathered. My restricting skirt has once again ridden up, but I leave it, not wanting a distraction.

Each throw gets harder and more intense and I feel a trail of sweat run down my back, can hear the jingle of my anklets hitting each other. Our teammates yell at us to _"one-hand it, one-hand it!"_

Anger at everything that has ever gone wrong in my life builds up inside me and I hit the volleyball with the force of the rage- at Four for some unknown reason, at Caleb for picking Erudite, at me for picking Dauntless, at us for letting down our parents, at me for not being good enough for this school... I grunt as I spike the ball violently at the black-haired Kyle, who initially catches it- before it rebounds out of his hands. He tries to save it but it's too late. He's out.

"Yeah!" I high-five the guy next to me.

Three versus three.

A minute later and Michael catches the white mass with his right hand only and our side cheers and pushes the ginger girl back in, as another opponent exits.

Four versus two.

I run backwards to just before the boundary marked by the pair of shoes and grab the ball, setting it so our newly rejoined ally can propel it over the mesh netting and into the enemy sand.

Four versus one.

There is only one boy left on Kyle's team. On his behalf, though, he looks perfectly sober- unlike some of the players we have at the moment- and has some massive muscles. No wonder he's the last one standing.

Back and forth, back and forth the ball is launched.

He gets the other boy out.

Two versus one.

Michael serves and the boy leaps, seizing the ball in his big hands and lobbing it back at us. I run and catch the ball, the force of his throw knocking me sideways, causing me to stumble. I let out a grunt and, angered, hurl it at his face.

Instinctively, he ducks.

Which would have been good if he had not been right at the edge of the boundary.

I'm out.

"No," I boo but leave the sandy nukem court. One of my teammates pats me on the back as I go to get a drink, and various people smile at me.

Walking over to the Booze Table, I find a drunken Uriah and Marlene making out in front of one of the kegs, which I grimace at and reach around them to see if there's a soda in one of the coolers. There's a Coke, so I grab it and shake the extra ice and water off, flipping the tab up. The drink fizzes as I sip it, walking down towards the salty water. My bare feet leave footprints in the wet, packed sand as the waves gently lap against them.

"You shouldn't be so obvious," a cold voice behind me says quietly: Four.

I don't turn around.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me fine."

I don't respond and keep walking along the shore lazily.

After a minute or two I ask, "Obvious about what?"

I can feel his intense blue eyes on my back.

"...Nothing."

Reluctance, he is reluctant.

I turn around and stare at him.

"Okay," I sass and walk swiftly back up the beach like I have something important to do, even though I'm headed nowhere in particular.

* * *

Kyle walks toward me where I am sitting on a stray white blanket that someone had ditched.

"So, Dauntless," he grins, using my school as a nickname. "Are you on the volleyball team at your school?"

"Huh? No. Why?" He sits down next to me leaving about a foot and a half of room between us, and stretches his legs out, looking over at the serene water before us.

"'Cause you kicked ass at that match."

"Thanks. You weren't so bad, yourself."

There's a moment of silence.

"I'm Kyle." He sticks his hand out at me. I shake it.

"I know. Tris."

"Well, Dauntless Tris, would you mind putting down that pistol? If you use it to scare off guys, it certainly works."

I laugh but tell him that actually, no, that was not my intention, though now that he mentioned it...

"I don't think that's such a good idea; I could get disqualified," I explain.

"I see. If it helps, almost everyone here is hammered," he offers, unconsciously looking to the Coke can propped up in the sand next to me.

"I suppose. Better safe than sorry, though."

"I suppose." Kyle smiles.

I tilt my head back and stare up at the moon.

"Just out of curiosity, why is Candor partying on a Monday night?"

"For the same reason Dauntless is crashing: for fun."

The stars shimmer and blink at us.

"So, Dauntless Tris, tell me: do you have a boyfriend?" I look at him. "Who happens to be very big and well-built?" I furrow my eyebrows. "Or one who is tall with dark hair?" At first I think he's describing himself the second time around, but that seems... odd.

"What?"

"Well, I only ask because there are two boys who seem to both be staring at you like they wish they were."

I look around for the people Kyle is talking about. Not finding them, he flicks his chin out quickly, a sort of jerk of the head, pointing them out.

I make eye contact with Four.

His face is stony.

I don't blink.

We are frozen like that for seconds before I turn back to Kyle, laughing at the thought of my being in a relationship with Four.

"No... no, that's my teacher."

Kyle chuckles.

"Oh."

I reach over and take a sip of my soda.

"Then what about the other one?" He inquires.

"Where?" He points the other one out, too. It's Al.

When our eyes lock, he blushes and immediately looks away, turning to start a rushed conversation with someone else.

"No." I mumble. "No, Al is... just a friend."

_I think. I hope._

"In that case, Dauntless Tris, would you mind giving me your number?"

I look up, shocked, and I'm sure my face reddens by at least five shades. I hope that it's too dark for Kyle to see.

"Uh... s-sure." He shifts a bit to the side so he can pull out his phone from the back pocket of his black jeans. When he unlocks it, the screen brightens and lights up his face. For the first time, I see that he has green eyes. I stare at them until he hands me the device, turning towards me, and stops short when he sees me ogling him. Quickly, I look away and type in my name and number into his phone and save it in his contacts. I give the phone back to him. "So..." I try to think of something to say to him to get the topic off of his catching me staring. "If you're going to keep calling me 'Dauntless Tris,' should I call you 'Candor Kyle?' It's alliteration." I say.

He smiles.

"Sure, why not?"

I nod and lay down on the now partially sand-covered blanket, gazing up at the stars. Kyle looks at me for a moment with his green eyes, and does the same, folding his hands across his stomach.

"Really, though, you were a monster at nukem back there. You should at least try out for your school volleyball team or _something." _

"Gee, thanks, I've always wanted to be called a monster by an attractive boy," I say sarcastically. I take a breath. More seriously I add, "Yeah, I just might."

"You're a very noticeable monster," he says.

_But I'm not pretty,_ I think.

Kyle turns his head and looks at me as if he could read my mind.

"Noticeable," he repeats.

Kyle looks back up at the night sky. I'm not sure how much time passes but eventually I notice Dauntless getting up and filing out of the beach. I stand up and brush myself off, grabbing my empty Coke can with my empty hand. I already see that there are less Dauntless now than the number who first came.

"I should probably go now. Catch the train- well... 'jump' it I guess is the better way to put it." I wait for him to say something, but when it seems like he won't, I begin to jog towards the mountain of shoes and other belongings. As I do so, Kyle stands up and follows me. Once I find my sandals, I grab them and don't bother to put them on. "You'll see someday," I say and run off after the already receding first group of Dauntless who are sober enough to find their way back to the campus.

"Bye, Candor Kyle." I wave over my shoulder and hope he sees it as I chase after them to catch the train.

A ways down the block I hear footsteps behind me, coming closer, and once the person is right next to me I see that it is once again Four.

Before he passes me, he spits out, _"That."_


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey, gorgeous readers! I'd like to apologize for any confusion I may have caused in the past/be causing in the future due to chapter updates; I like to organize my chapters so that they're a certain length, or so that they're not as choppy, or so that they make more sense or are more detailed- really anything. Because of this, I often add two chapters together, which causes the notifications about updates to become all screwed up. So if it ever says I have updated a new chapter but you can't seem to find (for example) chapter 10, that is probably because I added 8 and 9 together, so the new chapter would be listed as chapter 9 instead. I _would_ have actually updated. If this ever happens, just look for it, I promise the chapter will be there. I am sorry for any confusion or aggravation.**

***One quote from Veroncia Roth's _Divergent _in here, can you find it?**

**Also, review please! They are always welcome, no matter what they're about. (Positive ones are typically preferred, though.)**

* * *

_I can't see anything in front of me, only blackness; Blackness and blackness and blackness. Endless dark surrounds me._

_And then there is a voice._

_A ghoulish, echoing voice that jitters through space unevenly and sticks to me. Definite._

Tris, shoot them.

_I whirl towards where it came from on my left. As I step, I hear a sharp, high pitched rippling and see an almost metallic reflection beneath my feet: water._

Shoot them, Beatrice.

_My head snaps to the right where the woman's voice whispered in my ear but still all I see is nothing._

It'll be easy. Just pull the trigger.

_Behind me it emerges into, yet again, oblivion, the words trailing off into dust and dirt and gray filth. I stumble away from the direction of it as the cold unforgiving liquid seeps into my shoes, rising quickly._

One little twitch and it will be over.

_As the voice surrounds me, corrupts my senses, it incarnates- separates, morphs into individual, puny, murmur-sized sounds- and metamorphoses into distorted grunts and tongues and intonations._

Shoot them, _they persuade._

_"No." But my mutter is not heard, not even by myself. "No."_

Kill them.

_The water is to my ankles, swirling around the thin skin and bony joints, lapping at the weak muscle._

Watch their blood seep from their chests.

_Just as the voices did, the water mutates, running crimson and feverish between my knees, kissing the tips of my fingers. It stings and I pull my hands back away from the has-been water, is-now blood.  
_

Shoot them.

_The pool begins to bubble from below, the torridness searing my flesh as if on fire, filling the vast emptiness of the grim void._

Shoot them.

_The incalescene is scorching me, burning me alive in this fiery ocean of blood._

_The thick liquid absorbs into my clothing, lifts my shirt from my abdomen to float around my chest like a fallen halo of fabric. My feet leave the floor at the same time my head hits the ceiling- the hard, steaming ceiling._

Shoot them.

_I am trapped by this watered-down calidity._

Shoot them.

_In this calefaction I will drown._

Shoot them.

_And I can't do anything about it._

Shoot them.

Shoot them.

Shoot them, shoot them, shoot them!

_And a scream rips from my throat just as the hot, rusty hate fills my mouth and blocks my nostrils, dripping down into my lungs._

_I can't even cough it back up._

* * *

I jolt up in bed, waking up to the barrage of my gradually intensifying alarm clock's beeping. Rolling over in the tangle of sheets and blankets and pillowcases, I slam my fist down on the snooze button and just close my eyes, urging the sleep-deprivation to drain out of me. There's tension in my back, my chest; My eyes are heavy and my head is aching. I can feel a sheen of sweat on me and on my bed cover and I know that I'll have to do the laundry soon if I don't want to reek of day-old sweat and dirty clothes. I wonder where the laundromat is, or if there is one of those rooms filled with washers and dryers on campus, or if someone lucky has one installed in their joined-to-their-bedroom bathroom. As I wait motionlessly in my bed for my alarm to go off and signal me that my five minutes of heaven is up, I ponder this and am incredibly grateful not to have touched the alcohol last night. How much more misery would I be in now?

And there it goes, the most annoying sound ever to be created by man:

Beep, beep, beep...

Beep, beep, beep.

_Beep, beep, beep, beep._

_Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep-_

Unable to ignore the shrill insistence anymore, my hands grope the clock for the Off button on the side of the thing.

I grumble and wait a second to throw the covers off of me and head to the bathroom.

Waking up at six o'clock is not my forte, not to mention waking up at six o'clock after going to bed at three; By the time I got back to my dorm last night, all belongings in hand, it was half past one. By the time I finished my homework it was three A.M. and let me tell you, I did not waste any time falling asleep. As I walk around my pile of clothes on the ground from yesterday, my eyes flick over to Christina's bed, perfectly unmade:

She's still not in.

A flash of panic runs through me for her, but I shake my head and remind myself that it is her life. Besides, we had a fair warning about this happening at orientation on our first day.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ I mentally curse Christina for not making it back to the room, probably passed out on the beach somewhere.

But I strip down and fling the shower curtain of our joint bathroom aside, grab my toothbrush and toothpaste from my half of the counter top- hers being filled with stacks of makeup and perfume and other appearance-important articles- and turn on the water.

She's a tough girl, I tell myself.

My eyes keep sinking shut as the water rains down over my back in hot streams, over the knobs of my bony spine poking out from my skin, and I need to force them open. As soon as my breath smells like mint and my hair smells like ginger and my body smells simply and boringly like soap, I conclude my shower. Once I turn the glinting metal faucet off and step out into the steamed up, foggy bathroom I wrap a towel around myself and enter my cool room, with the air that sticks to my body and fattens the droplets on my arms and chest. The first thing I look at is her bed. I frown at her absence as I run a stiff brush through my soggy hair, letting the excess water drip and fall onto the carpeting, and pull open my drawers with the grinding noise of the wheels on their tracks inside the piece of furniture. Flinging on a pair of black, tight jeans that grip my damp thighs, a baggy woven shirt that hides my nothingness, and my trusty combat boots, I swing my bag off of my unmade bed and onto my shoulder. The door shuts, the key turns, the lock clicks, and I pad down the heavy hallway, clomp down the railing-less stairs and out into the fresh atmosphere that lives outside every building. Grass breaks beneath my feet, brittle with early-morning frost that has yet to melt into dew, and a flurry blows through the school grounds, lifting up stray leaves and loose dirt.

When I enter Building A condensation has beaded on the toes of my boots, flicked off with each footfall I take towards the cafeteria, on my way to the locker room. The high-ceilinged room is nearly empty in the dim light cast by the torches on the walls as I grab an everything bagel from a woven basket on the front table and a water bottle out of the big metal cooler that only schools seem to have. A dead-looking Uriah is there with Lynn and Marlene, their books strewn about a wooden table at the back of the hall that they have to themselves.

"Do you guys have a free first?" I call to them, walking backwards out of the cafe. Lynn being the most alive of all of them gives me an affirmation with a monotone voice, and none of them look up from their work.

"If you see Christina tell her to book it to the gym, for me?"

When she nods, I give her a little thumbs up even though I know they won't see it, and nibble on my breakfast, leaving the room. Conveniently, the Pit, the gym, and the cafeteria are all in the same building (plus the fitness center, but I kind of include that when I say 'gym') so I stop by the giant bulletin board in the Pit as I make my way down to the training room. Flyers and handouts are pinned up everywhere, so that there is barely any cork-board to be seen. Unlike my previous school, none of them are colored- just white paper and black ink. Dauntless doesn't like to sugarcoat anything.

I search the papers, taking another bite of my joyously flavorful onion-y, seedy, salty-sweet, good-for-you bagel.

There's a list of what's in the school's Lost and Found, extra credit options, various "Missing" posters, mostly for cell phones and laptops, notices about fundraisers, a sheet advertising a school-wide trip to play laser tag... I stop looking when I see that one, studying it more. After reading the flyer, I rip one of the little tabs at the bottom off- out of the twenty of them, there were only two left- that has the date, time, and location of the trip on it, and stick the little rectangle of paper in my pocket. I'll have to check that out more later.

I go back to roaming the announcements, once again stopping when I find the list of sports that Lauren had been talking about a few days back.

"Okay..." I mumble to myself, running my finger down the page.

_Baseball, Male_

_Basketball, Female_

_Basketball, Male_

_Cheerleading_

_Cross Country_

_Fall Track_

_Field Hockey, Female_

_Football, Male_

_Ice Hockey, Female_

_Ice Hockey, Male_

_Lacrosse, Female_

_Lacrosse, Male_

_Soccer, Female_

_Soccer, Male_

_Softball, Female_

_Spring Track_

_Swim and Dive, Female_

_Swim and Dive, Male_

_Volleyball, Female-_

I tap it with my finger. A trail of dots follows the sport and leads across the page to its own individual tryout time and location.

"Gymnasium, 7 PM, Wednesday," I read out loud. "Track, 5 AM on Thursday. Gymnasium, 5 AM, Friday. Got it."

And I continue down to the girl's locker room as I think about the tryouts tomorrow after school, finishing my bagel and running a hand through my still-wet blonde hair. I adjust the strap of my backpack on my shoulder, filled with folders, books, gym clothes and gum wrappers as I push the door open with my hip.

The girl's locker room here at the Dauntspoint-Evanless school is big, with mirrors lining two out of the four walls- the third is taken up by a row of black lockers, and the last with shower stalls, a bathroom stall, and the door to the hallway. The mirrors have been vandalized over the years, colored with spray painted graffiti. Inside of the room, long polished benches are placed at intervals, all parallel to each other and appear harrowing beneath the stark lights that do nothing any good.

I twist in the combination to my locker, the one closest to the showers, and fling it open. I set my bag down on the nearest bench and pull out my gym clothes and the orange shoes, putting them on the bench as well. I turn back to the locker and the hard metal protests as I close my little backpack and hang it up on the hook inside of it. I sit down and untie my boots, toeing them off before I stand up again and shimmy out of my jeans. The door opens and Myra walks in tiresomely. She has bags under her eyes.

"Hungover?"

She groans and nods her head with less control than she should normally have over her own body, and dumps her stuff next to mine. I peel off my shirt and, with the fabric covering my face I can only imagine what her face does when she opens her own locker, which rattles like they all seem to do, and I hear her little sob of pain. Being directly in front of the door, I quickly slip on my gym shorts and tank top before someone comes in and broadcasts my body to whoever happens to be in the hall at that moment. Then, I fold my normal clothes up and shove them into the shelf at the top of my locker, and rummage back in my bag until I pull out a little white bottle. I screw off the cap and tap two little red pills into my palm, holding my hand out to Myra.

"Painkillers?" I offer quietly.

"Oh sweet Jesus, thank you," she says and takes them from me, popping them into her mouth and swallowing dry.

"No wonder you two suck at being Dauntless," An obnoxious voice sneers from the doorway. "You're _pill poppers."_

I roll my eyes as I sit down on the shiny bench again and slip my shoes onto my socked feet, tying the laces.

"Whatever, Molly."

Going to stand in front of the interrupted mirror, I run my fingers through the blonde waves atop my head and knot it up in a bun, thickened because my hair hasn't dried yet. I shut the old locker, click the shackle in, and spin the dial to re-lock it, heading out to the gym.

Peter and Drew are already in there when I enter. They snigger, but I ignore them.

"Hey, Stiff, how was your date?" Peter calls out, leaning against the set of bleachers.

"Didn't look like much of a booty call." Drew says.

"It can't be a booty call without a booty," Peter comments. "The Stiff's a little underdeveloped."

My face reddens and I fist my hands, but I walk over to the other side of the floor and stretch by myself with my back to them, enduring their commentary on me. I hear a new pair of sneakers on the glossy hardwood floor.

"I'm sorry, Stiff, but I don't think they'll accept you to be a Hooter. You're just not _qualified_ enough." Molly teases, pretending to be remorseful.

"Shut up, Molly, you just crushed her dreams!" Drew exclaims.

_"Hey!"_ Somebody barks at them. I hear flesh hit flesh and a loam moan leak out of someone's lips, and look over my shoulder.

My eyes widen.

"Will, stop!" I yell and run over to him, where he stands over Drew who is clutching his nose. Molly slaps him, leaving a sharp red mark on his cheek as Drew scrambles up, getting ready to throw a punch. I jump on his back and weave my arms underneath his armpits, clasping them behind his neck in a full nelson headlock, wrapping my legs around his waist. "Stop!"

"Get off of me," Drew snarls, trying to throw me off. I peel one foot away from him, bringing it back, and jab my heel into whatever muscle it finds in response. He grunts and Molly comes over and tries to pull me off of her friend.

I hear Will and Peter getting physical with each other.

"Stop it, Will, stop!"

Molly pries Drew free and I fall to the floor where she proceeds to kick me in the side. I gasp and cover my face instinctively.

_"Shut. Up." _

Her foot comes down on me again and I curl into a ball.

"You asshole." Will directs his comment at Peter as they circle each other, using the technique we learned in class yesterday.

"Come again?" Peter challenges, his fist swiping through the air for Will's gut; Molly drives her elbow into me; Peter and Will grapple with each other, both of them damaging each other pretty equally; Drew joins Molly in my attack.

The door bangs open and I hear Four's voice shout something and the two boys dragged away from each other, the other students away from me.

Ten minutes later Peter, Will, and I are all in the infirmary in Building F; Four declared that Molly and Drew needn't go. They weren't injured.

The cut on my cheek from yesterday had opened and as the nurse with dyed-red hair disinfects it, I wince.

"You didn't have to do that, you know," I mutter to Will. "The whole stick-up-for-the-little-girl thing. You didn't need to."

He sighs when the woman presses a bandage to my cheek and shoos the two boys away.

"I know," he says as the nurse draws a curtain through the middle of the room.

After she inspects the bruises underneath my shirt, she puts a clear gel on them and pulls the tank top back down, telling me not to push it. When she brings the curtain aside again, the two boys are sitting at opposite ends of the room glaring at each other. The woman pushes me forward and tells us all to "haul ass back to class."

We do, and just happen to walk in on Four lecturing the other juniors about causing trouble.

"-there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy. Try not to cross it." He turns his head when he hears us enter, after repeating what he had tried to make so clear during orientation last Monday. His jaw is set when he addresses us:

"You crossed it. Feel free to return to class when you know the difference between the two."

My jaw drops.

"No, I don't think so. Last time I checked, standing up for a friend _is_ bravery." I say at him. "I f anything, you should be kicking me out, not Will; I could've spoken up for myself-"

"But I didn't give you the chance to," Will cuts in smoothly.

"Will you stop trying to protect me? I don't need your help." I turn back to Four. "Don't make Will leave, he didn't do anything wrong. And if you think what he did was idiocy... are you saying you wouldn't have done the same? Because I think that's cowardly."

A vein pops in his forehead.

There is a minute of silence when the transfers just stare back and forth between Four and I as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Get out." He whispers.

"My pleasure."

* * *

My feet hit the red rubberized surface of the track in a set rhythm, fast-paced. My nails dig into skin as I run laps around the football field at the back of the campus, once, twice, three times.

I sweat in the heat of the day, my face, neck, and back swelter beneath the sun as I watch Lauren's class of juniors out on the turf in distinct columns, planking. Their elbows create right angles with the pseudo-grass, their forearms pressed into it, their backs and legs forming perfect lines. A boy lifts his head up as I pass by them for the fourth time in the past ten minutes, his face red from exertion. He offers me a little, exhausted grin and lets his head flop back down with a huff, his hair falling over his face.

Phlegm rises in my burning throat by them time I make it around again, finishing my first mile.

_Just one more lap,_ I tell myself each time, looking forward to passing through the shade at one end of the circuit, given off by a big overhanging tree. _Then we get to quit. _Every once in a while a breeze blows by and filters through the green leaves, shaking the leaves that cause the light to look shimmery. I wipe a hand over my forehead, pushing the beads of perspiration back. Then, I reach the end and simultaneously the beginning, and that is when I repeat my mantra: _just one lap, just one lap. _

That's the trick: deluding your body and brain into thinking it's almost over.

Because that's when the relief kicks in and you forget that you don't like to run. On the other hand, at the start of the loop you can tell yourself that one run around the track is really not that far, you've run more than that, so you can run this; It's all about deceiving and distracting yourself. By any means, I hate running... Well, I hate _distance_ running. Because while I have a lot of energy and speed, it burns out very quickly and I can't maintain it; I don't have any stamina or endurance. But with short distances, like a sprint, I can push myself and push myself to run faster and it won't even matter because I won't have to keep it up for long- in fact, the speed will even shorten the amount of time I'm doing it for. And besides, with sprinting I can feel my hair fly out behind me and really feel the air against my face, even if there isn't a wind- it's fun. No matter how cheesy, corny, and overused this saying is... I get such a rush from sprinting. I don't get that same rush when I run for distance, all I do is anticipate the end, wanting it to be over sooner. And have you ever noticed how when you watch a clock, the hands seem to move slower than before? Yeah. Well, that's what distance running is like for me. It's me torturing myself.

It frigging sucks, and it gets even worse if the sun beats down on you like it does today, because then your hair will stick to the back of your neck and you run the chance of becoming dehydrated and, in turn, possibly causing nausea. (Excuse the pun.) But I reckon my point is that I generally try to avoid running like this, and only when I convince myself that it will be good for me do I then try to persuade myself into believing that I indeed love it.

And just as I begin mulling over the gullibility of our human minds, near finishing another half mile, I hear my phone ring from all the way in my bag that I dumped by the giant yellow goalpost. Once I finish my round I jog up to the black heap and unsnap the magnet that keeps the small side pocket, meant for a water bottle, shut and dip in there for my phone. I click a side button and it lights up with the words:

_One missed call._

One missed call? Flipping the thing open, I click the center button and the little message flickers and is replaced with another one, the phone buzzing again.

_One new voicemail from: Christina._

_Listen. Ignore. Call back. _

Pressing the pad of my thumb into the left button, I put the phone up to my ear. I hear a beep and then Christina's voice talking through a bit of static.

"Uh, hey Tris, it's Christina..." She sighs. "Um... I just called to let you know I'm okay. If you were wondering or whatever." There's a pause and some whispering in the background. Then, a rustling noise a muffled, "Shut up, will you?" There's more rustling. "Er. Sorry... yeah. So I just missed the train, gotta wait for the next one and then I'll be back; Figured it's faster that way, anyways, rather than trying to walk all the way back. Hell, I don't even _know_ the way back on foot. Tell Four I'm not feeling well or something for me, okay? You're a lifesaver. But yeah, I'll see you soon." There's another pause. "Oh, and I saw you with that boy last night! _Tris, you naughty girl, did you get some?" _She laughs. "No, but I'm expecting a full-detailed report on him, or else I'll-"

And then she's cut off by the shrill end-of-message tone that phones use so peevishly much.

I forward her message to Will and Al, with the subject line "thought you ought to know, if she hasn't already contacted you" and added on in the text, "don't worry about that last bit..."

A blue box pops up onto the miniscule screen.

_Message Sent (2/2)_

I smirk a little bit and push back the stray wisps of hair that have fallen out of my bun, returning the little device to its home pocket and picking up my water bottle from the ground beside it. I unscrew the cap and, still hot from the mile and a half long run, guzzle at least a quarter of it in only a few seconds.

In the past few days the weather has gone from moderately warm, as it always seems to be at the end of the vacation from school, to a full-blown heatwave that leaves kids moaning and complaining that the air conditioning in their dorm building is faulty. On many occasions, I've passed groups of students babbling about possibly using one of the training rooms during their free, during lunch, or even before and after school to take advantage of the naturally refrigerated setting. I, on the other hand, am basking in the glory that is the never-ending summer.

With it being 7:36 and having the rest of the period at my disposal, I grab my stuff and head back out to the main part of the campus. I travel inside Building A once again, journey through the Pit and back to the locker room, and change back into my everyday clothing, neatly replacing them with my gym clothes on the shelf.

I take my time walking down to Building F, where I have math, and sink down on a bench beneath a weeping willow tree outside, checking over my homework and notes, and nursing my water bottle. Five minutes into my evaluation of the way functions behave over time, I lose focus on my work and my mind wanders to what Christina said.

_I saw you with that boy... did you get some?_

_did you get some?_

_get some?_

_get some?_

I shake my head and reassure myself that that was not his intention, and neither was it mine. Kyle was simply being friendly. Plus, if he wanted intimacy, then wouldn't he have just come out with it, point blank? Isn't that what he believes in, why he goes to Candham-Orwood: honesty?

Yeah.

A hair falls in front of my face and I reach up and tuck it behind my ear. Yeah, that's right. I nod and go back to studying what a nonexistent limit is, and by the time the bell rings for the end of the block I have successfully used the cubic function to solve number 27 on page 398 of my math textbook. The second after it peals through the loudspeakers, students are on their feet and rushing out of the buildings as if their life depended on it.

That's simply what hardcore Dauntless academics do to a person- I've begun to wonder whether our staff wishes they worked for Erudite.

I shove everything away and once I've taken my seat- a good three minutes early, I might add- my phone decides it is a good time to sound off and proceeds to play the corny pre-downloaded ringtone that came with it. Twice. After receiving the stink eye from my professor, I jerk open the thing to see I have two new messages, both saying pretty much the same thing. The only difference between Will and Al's texts is that Will added a "thank you for earlier" at the end of the couple I'm-glad-Christina's-alright sentences.

"You're hardcore."

Uriah's voice says from above me. I look up from my phone to see him sitting on the edge of his desk staring at me.

"Um..."

"Seriously, Tris. Okay, do you need examples? (A) You don't have your gun-"

_"Shit!"_ I interrupt him, sitting up straighter in my seat, half off of it as if I were about to run all the way up to my room and grab the weapon. Of course, I don't have half the time to, and Uriah keeps speaking as if nothing happened.

"-in your hand, let alone with you, and (B) you pissed off Four and kept going. That's got guts, he's a scary dude."

I slouch back down a little bit at the mention of my instructor.

"Yeah, well... he wasn't being realistic. I mean, don't you guys care about the little acts of bravery, too? Not just the 'whoops, gotta go save a life now' kind of bravery?"

Uriah shifts his weight.

"When you say that, I don't think you take into account that-"

The end-of-passing-time bell rings just then and our teacher- whose name is Foster and is also young, much like all the other teachers at this school, with a shock of red hair above his pale face- tells us to quiet down, take our seats, and pull out a blank sheet of paper. Actually, I don't think I've even _seen_ someone above the age of thirty for the past four days. That's odd.

"If you remember, last week was the first week of classes, which we spent reviewing functions in chapter one, and covered linear, polynomial, and rational functions in chapters two and three. I hope to get through the whole of chapter four, which we started yesterday, by the end of the period." Foster clears his throat and runs a hand through his curls. "Some people say time passes quickly at this school; if this is true this gives us all the more incentive to word harder and learn faster. Also, by Christmas break in a series of months from now, we will begin the Calculus portion of the curriculum for this class, after having an exam worth a quarter of your year grade. Thus, in this class you may have noticed that we move on from certain material quickly. As I told you on the first day- though you may have missed it due to arriving late- _be prepared."_ He stares at me before turning to the whiteboard and popping off the cap of a blue Expo marker with a loud sucking noise. The teacher begins to write as he says, "At the top of your notes feel free to label this section 'Exponential and Logarithmic Functions.'"

I scribble that down at the top of my lined notebook paper and sneak a glance at Uriah, who is diligently copying down the definition of a power function in bright green ink. As Foster drones on, I sneak out my iPod from my pocket and slip on my earbuds, toning it all out with a bass that washes clean all thoughts from my mind and a hypnotizing, eery, echoing harmony. Drawn out words and haunting phrases fill my ears as I begin to write on my arm. The majority of my hand and forearm is covered in sketches of dark birds and blazing fire; shiny glass boxes filled with murky water and the silhouette of hands intertwined; slick, dangerous rocks in the middle of the ocean and filthy, dead hands reaching out to grasp something... and guns. Terrifying, bloody guns pointed at people without faces that somehow seem familiar even with the lack of features and expressions. I draw thick black lines with the tip of my black pen, creating shadows casting off of the objects, long and silky, ghostly figures that rise up and consume the word _FEAR_. My arm comes into more focus than before and when I really look at the depictions I traced onto my body, my heart starts beating faster and my palms become clammy.

FEAR.

FEAR.

FEAR, FEAR, FEAR, FEAR,_ FEAR!_

"Tris, are you with us?"

My head jerks up and so does my hand, leaving a thick line of black all the way down my arm and across my drawings.

"Yep," I say rapidly. "Sure am."

But I don't return to my confused art that flusters and bewilders me for no understandable notion. Instead, I flick my eyes to the front of the class to see a whole whiteboard full of new definitions and theorems, and mark up my page with those versus my limbs with meaningless doodles.

Throughout the day I am shot curious looks at my arm, up to my face, and back down to my arm, but not one person seems to genuinely care about my self-vandalism until (admittedly) I trudge into the P.E. class not looking forward to it one bit. Still holding a grudge against my instructor for giving me the boot earlier on, I cross my arms across my chest and turn my back to him. When I do, this with a not very comely pout plastered onto my face, I spot Christina talking in the corner with Will and a flash of relief seeps through my bones and I give the smallest smile before I remember that I'm being stubborn, here. Though my attempt is solid, I know that it is a stupid and immature way to handle things, but I can't help it- at least, I don't _want_ to help it. That's just how Four makes me feel: like punching something, like lowering myself down to the sixth grade method of tongue-sticking-out. Eventually, though, I do let them drop to my sides and I do turn around to face him, expecting an icy glare and popping temple, but that is not at all what I get. No, I get shock. Once he caught sight of the blackness covering the expanse of my skin he hurriedly pulled me aside, telling the other juniors to warm up on your own, Edward's in charge. His fingers grope the horrifying images, turning my arm around to get a glimpse of the whole of them, creeping up and around each other, trying to devour one another whole. The inky blackness rubs off onto his fingertips, leaving the design of their prints clear against his comparative starkness. When I try to shake my arm free, his grip tightens.

"Tris," he breathes, looking in my eyes for the first time since that morning. "Why did you draw these?" His voice is so low that only if I strain can I catch the words.

"I- I don't know, I just did." I look down and mutter as a shiver runs up and down my spine at the memory of the dream that the pictures remind me of, "I was bored during math."

Until then he had had an expression of extreme intrigue and concern written clearly across his face but upon hearing this it dissolves into disbelief and acute amusement. My teacher gives a short, guttural grunt that must be intended to be a laugh and looks away, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

"You were _bored during math."_

I blink and switch my weight from foot to foot.

"Well... yes."

He continues to hold onto me, but again looks away, not permitting me to search his face for some... some _answer_ as to what the big deal is. This eternity drags on with me picking apart every little facial tick that occurs on his right side, looking for something that might clue me in, until I begin to think that he will never look back at me again. When he does his face is hard and it is obvious that he has been disputing something. The first time he opens his mouth, no English comes out. Four clamps it back shut and then sighs, trying again:

"Tris, we do this... _procedure_ here at Dauntless-" I can tell he is picking his wording carefully, and move closer trying to draw it out of him, "-where we analyze all the students, typically the freshmen and newly incoming juniors like yourself. The staff has individual sessions with the students, one at a time, who give their own personal definition of the words 'bravery' and 'fear.' You need to first address your fears to get over them. Tris, becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it." Four swallows hard. I watch his Adam's apple bob, taking a step closer to him, where I can smell his scent and feel his breath. I don't yet understand what any of this has to do with my drawings. "Tris..." He looks from my arm and back up to my clear blue eyes, just inches from his. "I think you've just done at least half of this without us even asking you."


	6. Chapter 6

**Crista: Thanks for the ideas! As for the fear landscapes, you'll just have to wait and see, but I _will_ tell you that it'll be soon. (Ish.) They always train in the gym, although there are a couple of different ones. I guess I didn't make that very clear, did I?**

**Everyone: Tell me if I'm getting OOC with our little Tris, alright?**

* * *

My arm is red and throbbing as I scrub off my fears that I penned onto it this afternoon during my English Literature course, much like I did yesterday in math. Only this time, instead of hands reaching out to seize something or someone there are hands holding it back, restraining it. Hot water rushes over the thin skin in little streams that refuse to change their paths, diluted by the ink-stained suds of hand soap, and swirling and gurgling down the stainless steel drain of the sink in my bathroom. I watch as the contents of the darkest corners of my mind fades into little, cracked, interrupted things and then eventually disappear completely.

I can see raised pink trails from where my nails left marks.

Scowling, I turn the water off with a shrill squeak and towel off my arm, dabbing up the remaining droplets. I pick up my bag in a lump on my desk and shuffle through it until I find my gym clothes, which I throw onto my bed to be washed later, with the rest of my laundry. Then I dig around in my dresser for the second pair I bought at the school store- it's in the Pit and sells school-pride clothing, water bottles, key chains, and other random things we might need or want with the Dauntspointe-Evanless Preparatory School symbol on it. Of course, they always keep a huge stock of the P.E. uniforms in all sizes. You really never know what might happen when these kids are involved. I smirk and throw the clean set of clothes and my orange shoes in a smaller, drawstring bag that I toss onto my shoulders and head out; I don't need my folders or binders or books for tryouts. When I turn off the lights, my shared boarding room is immersed in darkness.

The halls of Building D are mostly silent except for the _whoosh_ of an occasional draft from someone's open window, what with the majority of the juniors hanging around the cafeteria or the fields outside. It is a rare occurrence for the Dauntless campus and chills run down my spine and linger on my lower back, but once I step foot out of the housing, everything is returned to normal and my chest stops constricting. The little electrical torches above each door are brighter than they are inside the rooms, and they light up the surrounding area with a warm glow. Laughter echoes over the lawns, around the buildings, through the alleys between them, and reaches me in short bursts of audio happiness. I clomp down the lawn and to the Pit. In the cafeteria I am bombarded with insanely loud babbling and palavers that I can't make out from each other. From the pans and bowls of food at the front, I grab simply an apple and a cold bottle of water- I guess I should really get a reusable one, what with how many I've been going through lately.

I sit down at an empty table at the back of the cafe and shrug off my bad onto the bench beside me. Oddly enough, the corners of the room have the most light due to the torches on the walls that are the only light source in this specific room, so in all actuality the center of the room, farthest from each of the lights, is the darkest place. My orange being wonderfully illuminated, I pick at the rind, trying to peel it with my short fingernails. With that not working I think, _aren't short nails supposed to be the sharpest?_ Blowing air out of my nose, I frown and continue to stubbornly scratch at it, not wanting to plunge my thumb into it and cause a spray of juice to cover my hand and probably everything else in a one-foot radius of it. Just as I think I got my nail successfully beneath the thick pulpy skin, I hear a gentle voice in front of me and look up sharply at the person I didn't know was standing there.

"Do you need some-" Four stops speaking abruptly at his remembering my distaste for the use of the _H_-word. Instead of offering his help, which he knows I'll refuse, he skips that step entirely and just takes the fruit from me. "Let me do that."

I watch as the skin of the orange lets off a cloud of perfumed mist around his nimble fingers and falls softly to the tabletop, coating it with a thin layer of what is now simply wetness but will soon be an aggravating stickiness. He hands the effectively peeled fruit back to me and licks his fingers.

"Thanks," I mumble.

"You don't have your gun."

"No." I separate the sections from each other, the thin skin breaking in spots and glistening juice wells to the surface. "I didn't have it yesterday, either; I forgot it in my room. Today I left it there, didn't even bother. I figured if someone were to shoot me, they'd have done it already."

My teacher stares at me with his shockingly blue eyes and I can't seem to make eye contact with him as I munch on my small dinner. It's safe to say the rest of the "meal" passes in silence. Once I pop the last plump triangle into my mouth, I take a swig of my water and stand up, throwing my bag back over my shoulders. Then I scoop up the orange peels and my eyes flick quickly from them, up to Four, and back down to the skins that are cupped and balanced on top of each other in my palm. Stepping over the bench I lope over to the trash can where I toss the rinds from a ways away and am fairly impressed that they actually made it in. I wasn't expecting them to. Passing the bulletin board, I am reminded by the school-wide laser tag trip and smile, giving myself a mental note to take out the little slip or ripped-off paper from yesterday's jeans before I throw them in the wash.

I keep sipping my water, alert of the footsteps that easily catch up with me, ones that I'm not surprised I've memorized the sound of by now, and who their owner is. His long strides could effortlessly leave me in the dust, but Four subdues them to match my miniature ones, my short legs at fault.

"You're trying out for volleyball."

It's not a question.

"Yes," I reply, still not looking at him. I am tempted to throw a tart, witty comment at him but restrain myself. In my peripheral vision I see that he nods. Like in the cafe, the rest of the walk is silent- but not uncomfortably so- until we reach the point in the corridor that has the women's locker room to one side and the gymnasium on the other. He speaks up and turns his body to face me fully, his strong build towering over my slight frame. My breath catches in my chest.

"Tris." His voice is low as he puts a foot forward. I take a step back. "I've noticed something..." He keeps his words quiet and gazes straight into my eyes for the first time that night. He holds my attention for a handful of seconds before continuing. "You work harder than the rest. You're more determined; You're more stubborn... And you don't give up." He takes another step forward. I can almost feel the hard wall on my back, can sense its presence and Four's near proximity to me. A thought shocks through the nerves of my brain and I think, what would happen if I stepped closer instead of farther away?

I do and keep my eyes locked on his, keeping my breathing in check.

"Tris. You need to be careful." He whispers, the breath from his mouth jumbling and fusing with mine as I try to breath shallowly just so that he doesn't know that my breathing is heavy, that he has this effect on me.

"Of what?" I make out from my tightened throat.

"Yourself," he says and bends over me. I tilt my face up to meet his when I hear a slow but nevertheless loud set of footsteps coming from further down the dark corridor. My eyes slip from the man's lips who I am now very aware of his position of authority over me, and to the corner of the hallway around which I am sure a body will walk around in a matter of seconds to see this compromising scene of ours. Finally touches my arm lightly with the tips of his fingers and sighs, "You shouldn't rub at it so hard," and I can taste his words on my lips as he leans back from me and puts a foot behind him. My instructor puts his weight on it and looks away just as a girl with heavy eyeliner and smoky, black eyeshadow swings around the corner and abruptly stops, almost running into me where I hide close to the wall. She puts a hand out as an apology and continues on her way, not even questioning the teacher's vicinity to one of his students.

"Sorry," I mumble gingerly before I duck into the locker room, clutching my bag tightly with anxious fingers, and peer hastily at Four once more as the heavy door sways shut to obscure his face from me and my face from him.

I change as fast as I can, not allowing the other girls any time to see my bare skin as my cheeks redden and my mind runs over that scene in my head again. I can feel the whisper of Four's lips on mine the way I so desperately wanted it to be in those brief seconds. Swiftly pulling the laces of my shoes tight, I brush a fallen hair out of my face and feel the corners of my mouth lift up. When I get in the gym, putting my cheap plastic water bottle down by the bleachers, I head out to the middle of the room where a woman- in all black, of course- stands surrounded by a group of other Dauntless girls. When I get closer I see that the woman, with her straight black hair streaked with gray tied up out of her face, has a black and white tattoo of a hawk on the back of her neck. Piercing red eyes stare back at me and I blink and wonder what the story behind it is, why a person would get such a tattoo. Curiously, I sweep my eyes over her and find that she has another one, but of a river, on her right arm. When the woman looks behind her and sees me, she turns around and gives me a sheet of paper from the stack she holds in her hands. Her eyes are small, dark, and angular and have tiny wrinkles around them as if they often crinkle when she smiles.

"I'm Tori," she says.

"Hi, I'm Tris." My voice comes out gentler than I expected and I swallow hard, the woman in front of me sporting a gaudy smirk.

"I know," she says freely and begins to turn around to her cluster of groupies, but turns back to explain: "Word gets around."

I take the handout from her and (once I'm done gaping at her in a mix of uncertainty and curiosity) look down at it: It's information about the tryout process and then- if you make it- what being on the team will be like. I skim it over as the other girls file in, make small talk with each other, stretch. Once a moderately sized mob of teenagers has formed in front of her, Tori steps back away from us all and clears her throat to get everyone's attention.

"My name is Tori and I am the Dauntspointe-Evanless volleyball coach. Line up!"

The woman goes back to a small table in the front of the gym where she tosses down the stack of extra information handouts and picks up another pile of papers, but smaller. She walks down the line of girls- that, by the way, formed quickly and quietly but in no specific order- and hands us each one of the half-sized handouts. They are our new names for the day, what the coaches will refer to us as, with two big safety pins at the top corners and large bold numbers taking up the majority of the space. Mine sports a loud '07' as I fumble with the pins and attach it to my tank top.

"Everybody put these on," Tori calls out loud enough for everyone in the room plus the entirety of the school to hear. "This is how we will identify you and remember you for the next three days of tryouts. You lose this number, you lose your name; You lose your name, you lose your ability to be noted; You lose your ability to be noted and you lose your chances at making it on the team. Do you understand?" Her eyes slide over us, our heads bobbing up and down synonymously.

"Wonderful."

* * *

At five before nine, I shove the tiny key into the keyhole to my dorm room and jiggle the lock- I've always been bad with them. My forearms are slightly red from hitting the volleyball so many times repeatedly and I almost feel bad for them, as they have been blotchy nearly all day. First the drawings, and now this. Quietly, I open the door and enter, shutting it lightly with my foot behind me. I sigh as I shrug off my bag and throw it to the side, where it hits the wall with a muffled sound. I notice that the lights are on, and I distinctly remember turning them off; Christina must be here. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and tuck a few stray strands of hair behind my ear as I round the corner, asking tiredly, "Hey, when did you-"

I freeze.

So do they.

I make a sort of choking noise and turn away, covering my eyes with a hand.

"Oh, my God. I'm sorry!"

I hear a lot of rustling.

"Tris, calm down, it's not what you-"

"At least put a sock on the door," I bark. "You know, I'm just going to grab this-" I shove open one of my drawers and pull out a spare towel, "-and go see if I can borrow someone's else shower... Don't mind me, it's not like I live here or anything. You guys can just go on and continue in your ways, I hope you two have a happy life of not thinking about me," I try to lay on the sarcasm. "In any other situation, Christina, I would be twirling my hair and jumping around like a ditzy girl to congratulate you on your new found love interest... a warning would have been nice." Once I've finished with my exasperated ranting I head back out the door, not even bothering to throw my dirty gym clothes in the hamper or hang up the bag, uncomfortable with what I walked in on. I let out a long breath and lean my back against the wall for a moment. Thankfully, barely any clothes were shed, but nevertheless... Will and Christina? From inside I can hear the two talking, but just try to block it out (slightly angrily) when I push myself off and up and head off to see if I could use a friend's shower instead of hardcore third-wheeling in my own room. Just thinking about all that sexual tension I would be feeling- and creating- is enough motivation to get me to walk a little quicker. I toss my fluffy towel over my shoulder casually and take a deep breath.

My first choice would have been to go to Al's room, but I figure after last night when I caught him staring at me I should maybe give him some space. Frowning that I have to do this, I pull my phone out of my pocket and call Lynn to see if she could help a sister out. I know she doesn't particularly like me, and I think she knows that she's not number one on my "friends list," either but I'm afraid that if I ask Marlene, Uriah will be there too. And then I'll be right back at square one. Reluctantly and with a sense of my pride slowly and maddeningly draining out of me, I find her contact and press the phone to my ear as it rings, grumbling to myself as I wait for her to pick up. I romp down the stairs and outside, plopping down onto one of the benches beneath a streetlamp. It rings several times and then goes to voicemail so I hang up, brash, and don't bother leaving a message- by the time she receives it, I would probably already have somewhere to go. Either that, or she simply didn't want to talk to me and would ignore the message altogether. I huff.

The sweat still clings to my back and the fabric of my shirt, slowly evaporating into the night air. Quickly, I reconsider the whole Al option, but dismiss that as well.

Standing up, I brush myself off and decide to just go for a walk. I know I have work to do for tomorrow, but all my books are back in the dorm room with the hormonal Christina and Will. I'll just wait them out. With nothing to think about, I watch the trees sway in the light breeze and dirt swirling around close to the ground, swept up. I reach up and pull the elastic band out of my hair, letting it fall down and float on the air. I run a hand through it raggedly, trying to even it out from the stiffness it got due to being up for hours and smell the distinct, sweet odor my shampoo has. I frown, once again thinking about my dilemma, when I find myself out on the main road leading to the city. Shrugging, I throw my cares to the wind and set out on a spontaneous late-night promenade. Passing local shops that are getting ready to close and chains that are open until midnight or so, I see barely any people out. A look behind me and I see the flaming symbol of the Dauntspointe-Evanless Preparatory School fading more and more into the background.

It turn around then and something catches my eye. A newspaper has been thrown carelessly into the middle of the wide sidewalk, and upon reading the headline, I reach down and gingerly peel it up off the filth-covered ground. I shake it out a few times before actually reading it to get any loose dirt off of it, and continue walking distractedly and slowly down the lane.

It's about Erudite. Down near the bottom of the article I see a picture of a group of students there, my brother being absent from the photo. Nonetheless, I read on.

Once I get to the end of the article, which contains an unimpressive interview from the headmistress, I crumple it up half-heartedly and toss it into the nearest trashcan, a few yards away. I shove my thumbs through the belt loops of my pants and furrow my eyebrows, bored. Apparently the school has been funded by some important science department and is now allowed to perform these different experiments to further explain the course material to some of the students. New materials, money, information, the whole shebang. I guess a whole lot of the government is surprised about it, too. I don't really see what the big deal is about some new rights or whatever it is. I'll bet Caleb is ecstatic, though. Shuffling my feet, I peer into the store windows and see people talking or sweeping the floor or- in one case- filing papers. Down the road I spot a little coffee shop called "Muggers" and poke around in my pockets, pulling out a crumpled ten dollar bill, and decide to grab a cup.

Once I pull aside the little glass door painted with their name in big bold letters, a little bell rings to announce my arrival and I glance up at it before walking up to the counter. It is a quaint little shop, but with an overall grim theme to it. Above the counter hang a few black chalkboards, with clean, attractive white handwriting displaying my options for what I could order. I quickly skim my eyes over it and decide on just getting something small, with not too much caffeine. Hopefully I won't have to stay up too late tonight. I see under the underlined word 'SPECIALS,' they have a list of somewhat exotic-sounding drinks. With my cares just floating on the wind there outside, where I threw them, I lick my lips and make up my mind pretty quickly, while the young barista fiddles with something. I notice at once that I am the only customer inside. My feet are loud on the tiled floor and the guy behind the cash register has his back to me while he begins speaking. I assume he's cleaning something- I don't know what he's doing, but apparently I came in while he was busy.

"Oh, you caught us just in time, we were about to close up. What can I-" Then, he swings around mid-sentence to face me while a smile.

I blink.

"-get you..." His features freeze in place for a moment as he trails off. There's a beat before we both speak, at the same time.

"Tris?" He asks.

"Kyle? Hi," I stutter, realizing for the first time how silly I must look with a random bath towel hanging around my neck, and knotty, un-brushed hair from volleyball tryouts. I blush and have the sudden urge scratch my head, just to have something to do with my hands. "I didn't expect to see you here." I shuffle my feet awkwardly. "Long time no see."

"Yeah, me neither," he nods, the smile replacing itself on his face. "Two whole days." We simply stare at each other for a bit until the Candor boy in front of me seems to snap out of whatever trance we were in first and gestures to the scrawl-filled chalkboards above his head. "Did you want something?"

"Oh. Yeah. Um..." I immediately pretend to be mulling over the options when in reality I already know what it is I'll order, thinking that maybe he would think it weird if I already knew. Which is, admittedly, a stupid thought. "Is the hazelnut caramel latte any good?"

He checks out the sign behind him.

"Yeah, that one is one of the most popular ones we have! Want that?" He asks me, suddenly in business-mode as he begins to punch in the keys of the machine, ringing me up.

"Can I get a... large?" I change my mind.

"Mhm, sure thing. Anything else?" He pauses, fingers hovering over the buttons, and looks up expectantly.

"No, thank you" I pay and stick the loose change carefully into my back pocket, dropping the coins into the tip jar. I lean against the counter as I watch him make the drink. He eyes me while he does some quite fancy-looking things to the contents of the ceramic mug in his hands.

"So, no gun this time?"

I raise my eyebrows in surprise and glance down at myself, as if I'll magically see my little black handgun strapped to my stomach or my thigh. Of course, it isn't, and I look back up at the boy.

"No." I shake my head. He smiles at my lack of explanation and graciously continues the conversation effortlessly.

"Is the competition still on, then?" He adds a splash of some liquid into the coffee before lightly stirring it and handing it to me. "Or did you lose?" He jokes. I take the mug with thanks and stare into the very professional-looking frothy white surface of it, grinning.

_"No."_ I say exaggeratedly and take a sip of it. "I just left it at home this ti- this is good." I interrupt myself and glance at him with his award-winning smile.

"Thanks. I get the big bucks for it." He winks. I look away. "Actually, I added a little bit of vanilla syrup to it for you," he says, somber. "I always like it better that way." Kyle shrugs and his eyes flit from his hands to mine, to my eyes, and back. The 'for you' doesn't go over my head and I shyly look down into the hot coffee cup.

"Thanks." I mumble. "Um," I clear my throat, "so I noticed this is kind of far from Candham-Orwood... How come you decided to work here?"

"Aren't we curious!" He jokes.

"Not to be rude, I just thought it might take you a while to get here, and with school and that work load and everything-"

"Tris, it's okay!" He laughs at my ranting. "My brother owns the place."

"Oh!" I make eye contact with him. "So it's kind of a family business."

"Yeah, kind of," he amends, leaning his arms on the counter. He gives me a once-over but I pretend not to notice as I take another sip of the latte. "What's with the towel?" He smirks. A string of cuss words runs through my head in that moment. I had really been wishing he didn't notice that...

I sigh.

"Well, it's kind of a long story," I teasingly groan. I watch as Kyle stands up and walks over to one of the little tables-for-two nestled in the corner and sits down silently in one of the very comfortable-looking chairs. He stares at me expectantly.

"I've got time."

I breathe heavily out of my nose and feel the corner of my mouth twitch up as I make my way towards him and sit down in the chair opposite him. I set the coffee down and scoot closer in, before looking at him and beginning the tale of why Tris is out in the city this late at night looking like crap. I fiddle with the handle of the mug when I get to the part about crashing my roommate's make out session and nearly start coughing when I get to the part about the shower. Hoping he doesn't notice how disgusting I actually look, and how much I truly need that shower, I try to wrap up the story by ending with, "And then I saw the sign here and thought it might be a bit, so I came in."

I peek a glance at the boy sitting across from me through my eyelashes and my hair falls out from behind my ear. He gazes at me with eyes so intense I need to look away, reminded of the look Four gave me before tryouts, just before the girl came around the corner. My cheeks redden for what feels like the hundredth time tonight and I stand up abruptly, almost knocking the chair over in my haste.

"I should go," I announce, finishing the last of the latte and stomping my way to the door. Halfway there I stop. "Oh." I turn around and look between him and the now-empty mug a few times, in question.

"Oh, I'll take that," he says and follows me to the door, taking the cup from me and heading back behind the counter. I almost protest with a "no, I can do it," but then realize how stupid I would sound, not working here or having any responsibility over washing the ceramic cup. I let it go.

"Thanks," I mumble and watch him put it in the sink with the other dirty dished I know see, and am sure that's what I interrupted earlier. Feeling guilty for making him stay later at work, I rub the back of my neck and stand there, not knowing what to do. "Well. Bye?" It comes out more like a question than I farewell and I could hit myself. "Bye," I repeat myself, firmly this time.

Kyle turns around and grins at me again.

"Yeah. See you 'round, Tris."

He turns back to the dishes at the same time I open the door and hear the welcome bell ring, mustering my pride and leaving the cozy shop. There is a sinking feeling that I completely botched that little encounter.


	7. Chapter 7

My alarm goes off at 4:30 on Thursday morning, waking me up early enough to clear all the fog out of my brain- which the crisp pre-sunrise air does, anyway- before the endurance part of volleyball tryouts. The shrill, annoying sound jostles my roommate awake too, and she groggily and grumpily half-yells, half-groans at me to "shut the damned thing off!" Figuring I'll have enough time to run back up here after practice to shower and change, I strip out of my pajamas and haphazardly toss on my gym clothes from yesterday, smelling like crap all over. I steal Christina's perfume for a few seconds as I douse myself in the sweet mist, trying to cover up the distinctly girly scent of sweat. (Because, I don't know if you ever noticed this, but girl's sweat smells so incredibly, shockingly different from boy's sweat... almost fruity.)

Not wanting to be late, I pin on my '07' as I jog down to the track, and need a few tries before I finally fumble the thing onto my shirt. The air is chilly and I can just barely see my breath, in little clouds of white, puffing out before dissipating and disappearing. On my way out to the track at the way back of the campus, behind the main building and the six smaller ones, I see some committed early morning runners lacing their shoes up on the benches near their dorm houses and heading out the gates, some seeming to go towards the beach and others into the many city streets. I respect their dedication to the sport but honestly wonder why they put themselves through that- I don't particularly enjoy running, especially outside; running on a treadmill eliminates so much strain on your joints (and muscles) and is actually a little bit easier. It doesn't matter so much now, though, because based on where our next one-third of tryouts is taking place, I'll be doing my own this morning. I mean, what else would we do on the track and field but run?

My feet can tell the difference between the healthy grass of the lawns and the plastic-y turf of the football field when they hit it. The almost bouncy, rubberized feeling is somewhat foreign to me, as I have never spent much time out on the field- not here, nor at my old school. All around me, the same girls as yesterday are stretching. Some of the girls are making small talk with each other, but there isn't nearly as much conversation going on now as there was before yesterday's practice, most likely due to the horrid hour of the day. I forgot to grab myself some food, I'm sure others did, too; I imagine that that contributes to the heavy mood, as well.

Tori is nowhere to be seen at the moment, it being fifteen minutes earlier than the scheduled time she'd given us.

I walk over to the edge of the field just by the big yellow goalpost, by myself, and drop down into a lunge. I'm a little sore from yesterday but not too much so, seeing as we didn't do many intensive drills. Wednesday was solely devoted to the skills needed for volleyball- passing, setting, serving, spiking, hitting, etc. We were divided into groups to practice them all together, for essentially the whole time, while the coach watched us from the sidelines and scribbled anxiety-inducing notes onto the pages of her clipboard. Every once in a while she would give us input on how we were doing, or instruct us. Other than that, though, the only talking she really did was to authoritatively change up the drill or she wanted to see us do.

Feeling confident in my performance the day before, I take a deep breath during my peaceful, solo warmup to get my head together. The little black grains of rubber pop up from between the fake-green blades of grass when I put my hand down or when I change my footing and already the springy "soil" has made its residence in the soles of my sneakers. Since there will be more to come, I leave it be for the time being and will just have to dump it all out at the end of the morning's tryouts.

I know that at the same time I was keeping my eye on that white leather ball in the gym, other sports were having their own tryouts in different locations on campus- I believe football had the last of theirs last night on the track. I wonder if any students are in the gym or the fitness center now, stretching everything out for the next few hours at the same time everyone here behind the school is, now. Obviously not field hockey- that requires a field, which we are currently occupying- or basketball- Christina wants to be on the team for that, I believe, and she apparently had no plans for an early-rising, as she made clear to me this morning in her swearing me out and her incredibly muddled words- but maybe something else.

I roll my neck and hear it pop as I get all the cricks out of it from a poor night's sleep; Despite my getting back to our dorm room at just past eleven last night and finishing up my school work just before one _and_ my lack of energy from all four PE classes plus volleyball... I didn't fall asleep easily. Nor did I sleep well once I did. I blame it on how wound-up I was after the day, not to mention how wound-up I was just thinking about my day today. Talk about an insomniac. So I ended up getting just about three hours of rest, which absolutely does not help with my performance today, though luckily it is a brisk morning. Cold weather is always a good, natural wake-up call.

Coffee would have been good, too.

And speak of the devil, just then I see our coach, Tori, sauntering up to us with a hot steaming cup of joe in her hands. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only person eying her caffeine jealously.

"Run twenty laps!" She barks at us.

Many of the girls look in horror at each other. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that her demand is equal to five miles, which is over the length of a 5k run. Now, I'm not sure about the other girls, but I know I'm not yet in shape for that. Still, I contain my groan and stand up from the too-false turf and make my way to the beginning of the track, the rough red rubber circuit than loops around the football field, framing it. I am the first to begin running, and I have resolve in my eyes.

I don't care how sore I'll be at the end of these two hours, I will do this.

It seems to take forever to get back to the start, but I notice after a while of listening to the huffs of our breathing and the pads of our footfalls that looking further into the distance makes it seem a shorter interval to cover.

By the third lap we have all paced ourselves. We know we'll need it.

By the sixth all of our footsteps are together and we have stopped talking to one another so frequently. If we do, our sentences are awkward and choppy, interrupted by (in some cases) already-strained breaths.

By the ninth, the conversation has died out completely.

Each time we pass Tori, sitting comfortably in the bleachers, a passe of girls has made it tradition to give her the worst look they can muster and make a big show of it. I, myself, think that to be stupid; they are wasting they're energy not on proving themselves to the coach, but on putting themselves on her bad side. I don't expect them to stay running for long, either.

On our tenth lap around the track, the first girl drops out, panting. A few people run backwards just to catch a glimpse of her poor self, doubled over and dripping sweat. She was number twenty three. It has been two and a half miles now and I hate myself for continuing and I hate myself for wanting to quit, two completely different things. Oddly enough, my ribs ache, probably from the way I subtly swing my arms as I go, bent in close to my chest.

During our team run, I analyze the other people around me- their way of running, what their appearance says about them. I'm near the back of the group. Some girls lean forward and some lean back. Some never let their heels touch the ground and others do every step of the way, rolling through their feet. Some girls put their shoulders into it and some girls keep their chests near motionless. I notice one who is running by my side, number fifteen, has a habit of clenching and unclenching her fists. Numbers three and eleven both wear baggy shirts, and numbers twenty and five both seem to enjoy showing a lot of cleavage, not bothering to wear a sports bra. Twenty two has messy hair, like mine. One girl looks to have painstakingly pulled her hair back so tight I'll bet twenty bucks she'll have a migraine headache by the end of the tryouts. The girls are all different from one another, though, in all the little details about them. Whether sloppy or neat, everyone on the track is unique- and not in the "I have nothing better to say about you" way, but the "if people pay attention to you, you can inspire many" way. I'm glad. And I've put myself in a good, take-on-the-day mood.

The run continues tiresomely and girls continue to fall behind and slow to a walk, even stopping, as we repeat our path around and around the field. Then, somewhere between mile three and mile four, the quitting plateaus. For a while no one else gives up and I am left with the blob of girls who are insane and envious of our fellow early birds who are now sitting in a circle in the middle of the field together, talking and drinking water and _sleeping_. I glance over at Tori and she seems to not care at all what those girls are doing- nor does she seem to care what we are doing. Of course, I'm sure she'd notice if I started to walk for a bit and then proceeded to run, so I don't even attempt it; she does glance up at us every once in a while, randomly.

I have to keep reminding myself to take deep breaths and open my mind up- the workout isn't so hard if you can just convince yourself that it's good, if you can put yourself in a better state of mind. Trick your brain, remember?

Now, don't get me wrong, I hate what Tori is having us do. I hate the pain in my sides, I hate the burning in my thighs, I hate the numbness in my calves, I hate the sweat on my forehead and my back and my chest and my everywhere. I hate it all. But I need to do it, and distracting myself is the easiest way to get over it. (And get it over with.)

The whole thing reminds me of Four and his suicide drill that one time during gym. I almost laugh when I remember that they are teachers at the same school, both promoting fitness and whatever.

But I don't.

On the fifteenth lap I need to motivate myself again to just go the next quarter mile, to make it to four miles total.

On the sixteenth lap I need to motivate myself again to go the next four.

It continues like that.

The person in front of me groans terribly, clutching her sides in a way that makes her jog funny. By now, we've all lost a lot of stamina and have downgraded to jogging, not running, definitely not running. No one has the energy for that now.

I could cry, thinking about how completely and utterly awful having PE after this will be, especially if today it is with Eric- Four is considered soft compared to him.

I tell myself I need to make it to the last six girls, I can drop out after that, just be one of the last six girls. After all, there will only be six girls on the team in the end and if I am right, this is a test of commitment and endurance. Metaphorically and physically. It has probably been half an hour, or over that, and I don't think I've ever run this far consecutively. I'm so slow it's almost pathetic and when I think that, I buck up and try to push myself, given a new burst of energy. I can't be pathetic, oh, no.

At seventeen laps, twelve girls are left, and I am about to scream at them to just drop out already and let me quit when I remember that I'm not a quitter and pick up my pace. Just then, as my final burst of adrenaline gets me ahead of the others girls, them falling behind me, Tori stands up from her spot in the stands for the first time in maybe forty minutes. Immediately all eyes go to her, as she takes her time walking down the silvery metal steps and onto the edge of the track, waiting for us to near her. It must be an hour before we are close enough to see her facial features clearly, though I now it isn't even a minute. She opens her mouth and we strain our ears, probably the only parts of our body that isn't screaming for us to stop and be done with this whole running fiasco she's having us do. She only takes in a deep breath though, as if to taunt our fiery, shallow-breathing lungs. I can almost her the figurative tears sliding down our faces. I feel a cramp coming on. And then she speaks, right as we pass her by, in her crazy-comfortable looking black sweatshirt.

"Stop."

For a second or two we all keep running, as the gears work in our heads. Stop? But she said sixteen- oh. _Stop_.

And we do. We all stop.

More than a quarter of us drop down to the ground and sprawl out there, moaning and huffing and sweating; I feel like curling up into a ball, in the fetal position, and sleeping for a hundred years but instead I stretch again. I stretch out the muscles that despise me and I attempt to massage out the knots that have formed in my legs. I crack my back. And then I join them on the ground, taking a well-deserved seat. I silently apologize to my muscles, knowing that even though I tried I really can't prevent the distress of the muscle tenderness. I can already feel the soreness, I have for over five circuits of the track.

The other girls have meandered over to us, I notice when I glance pleadingly up at nothing in particular, in the middle of a huddle of twelve girls who are gasping for air like fish out of water. (And if I weren't so tired I would know that that simile makes no sense, since fish flop around like that in order to get back in the water, not to get air. But that is the furthest thing from my mind at the moment.) My eyes fall on two large Nalgene water bottles in our coach's hands, both filled to the brim and sweating from the ice inside it. She hands me one and one to another girl who is close to her.

I take it greedily, but aware that others are staring at it hungrily, I pass it off to the girl beside me without drinking any of it yet. She and a few others give me odd stares, hers containing a twinge of gratefulness, but quickly forget it when the icy water reaches their lips. I don't want to take more than my share, but when the transparent, marked-up bottle comes my way again I can't help but drink it dry, crunching on the few ice cubes that float into my mouth, still frozen. I'm sure we all know we're acting like crazed idiots, but after- What?- forty five, fifty minutes of what must be considered torture in some cultures, it can be dismissed. My stomach has that empty, acidic feeling that is almost like it is eating itself- I'm that hungry- and it announces this to the whole thirty-or-so people down at the fields with me by gurgling loudly. I clasp my hands around my middle and suck in, trying to mute the noise.

Our breathing has evened out a great deal at this point, and Tori finds it an acceptable time to speak. Thank God she didn't earlier, I wouldn't have been paying one shred of attention to the tattooed woman.

"The twelve of you, I expect to see at tryouts tomorrow, bright and early like today, back in the gym." She turns to the others. _"You,"_ she emphasizes, "are not welcome."

There are many protests from our- the girls who are about to die from exhaustion, starvation, and thirst- onlookers, but Tori shushes them with a lift of her hand.

"No buts. Give me your tags now, you are dismissed. Thank you. Goodbye."

No one tries to save themselves from the obvious rejection, as they slightly shamefully unpin their numbers from their shirts and place them into the woman's outstretched hand. Once the other girls have gotten all their grumbles out and are almost around the side of Building A, Tori turns back to us and simply says "five o' clock sharp" before briskly following the other students out of sight, leaving us staring after her in a minor state of shock.


End file.
